


Brave New World

by thatsthefrailtyofgenius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anxiety, F/F, F/M, Kinda, M/M, Mental Illness, None of Your Faves are Straight, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Pining, Post-War, Slow Burn, Social Media, a bit of angst, a ron swanson esque man is headmaster, all of them - Freeform, damn extra idiots, even less of them are white, except not they just go to uni after hogwarts, harry is a lit student, healer!Draco, hogwarts has technology, its all a bit weird and wacky but awesome I promise, lots of fluff, snape grades hermione higher because she hacks him with dick pics, so much pining its so embarassing I hate them, they all do it for the vine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-09-23 00:27:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 43,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9631571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsthefrailtyofgenius/pseuds/thatsthefrailtyofgenius
Summary: Back at Hogwarts to take their NEWTs, Harry and co are attempting to mix recovery with school work, not to mention navigating the strange new dynamics forming out of the new chapter of their lives. With technology now working within the grounds, the injection of the internet into every day schooling, the inevitable online fued between Harry and Draco, and the reformed Slytherins not being absolute knobjockeys so much anymore; this brave new world brings about a whole new, completely unprecedented set of challenges.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *Rubs hands together and rolls up sleeves* We are officially back in business, people!
> 
> I finally figured out what was causing me so much stress with this story, and now we have the big unnecessary terrorist arc cut out because I bit off more than I could chew. I do that. I'm a bad writer, fuckin sue me. 
> 
> Anyway, here we go. Its all the same, up until they go to uni; there's no Angels, no bondlock involved, unfortunately (although I might hint at it in passing later on I'm still deciding). What I love about this fic is the domestic, rom com aspect so that's what I'm focusing on now. 
> 
> I hope you don't mind, I know people were really into the Angels arc but I made the decision for me. I'm sorry. Except not really. 
> 
> Expect lots of painful romantic comedy shenanigans forthwith, and if anyone feels the need to draw some fanart for this fic please, please do; its one of my favourite things to see. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, and as always, thank you. 
> 
> Dee xx
> 
> P.S. Follow me on tumblr at steelchestedanddiamondeyed, or on twitter @thekindofworld. Feel free to ask me any questions on any of those platforms at any time. 
> 
> Also the slytherin dorm scenes are inspired by this thread on tumblr http://hpimaginethat.tumblr.com/post/142920524660/mytardishaswings

Harry grumbles to himself, pushing his pantos lenses up his nose again, gritting his teeth and backspacing half a paragraph. Clicking his fingers, he returns them to the keypad, typing fast, eyes remaining on the screen the whole time.

He can hear Hermione’s typing too, surprised that there isn’t steam coming off of her keyboard, her untouched coffee beside her laptop, mass of dark afro curls a ruffled mess that cascades to her hips. She has one leg furled beneath her on her chair, the other dangling off of it, and her brown skin is slightly flushed with stress.

Ron is typing one letter at a time, or, more fittingly, one letter a second, a frown creasing his brow, cigarette burning in its ashtray to the right of his computer.

This is the case all the way up the table, students sat typing in various states of urgency, sweating, concentration all over their faces. They all have earpieces in, microphones resting in front of their mouths, some talking a mile a minute at the same time as working.

“You uploaded that bibliography for Flitwick yet? You know he’s going to be majorly pissed if you don’t, he can’t give you more than 50% if its not in before tonight.”

“Moodle is down at the moment.” Switching to chrome, Harry searches through the many tabs he has open for the email containing his notes on the dragon rebellion of the 15th century, “maintanence are working on it, they’re going to get back to me in the next hour.”

“Hour and a half.” Seamus calls from a few seats down where he’s editing an essay for McGonagall, “Nate is all flued up in the hospital wing so they had to call in the back up tech guy, also they’re having trouble with some weird system glitches.”

“Shit,” Harry growls, but goes back to the word document, typing out a quote from Bigongies guide to the 1500’s, citing it and adding it to the bibliography at the bottom (he’d actually remembered to include it this time.) “Did Snape mail you back about your appeal, Hermione?”

“About ten minutes ago,” she sighs, leaving one hand on the keyboard typing whilst she reaches for her black coffee and takes a long swig.

“What did he say?”

“He refused to get me the application form so I hacked into his Potion Masters website and changed all of his photo references to dick pics.”

Dean Thomas chokes on his coffee, spluttering and coughing through his laughter.

“That was _you_? Holy shit, Hermione, he’s going to kill you,” Neville snorts.

“Nope. I had a load of dick pics in my snapchat files because people keep sending them to me, and he was impressed because the coding was so safeguarded but I still managed to break through it. He didn’t even bother with the application form, he just went over the document again and added as many marks as he could milk; he even admitted to his biased marking criteria, put me up two grades.”

“Please marry me,” Harry pleads.

“No, you’re in love with Malfoy.”

“I am _not_ in love with Malfoy!”

“Yes you are!” half the table call back and he growls again, a dark look falling over his face as he returns to his work. Beside him on the table however, his IPhone lights up with an alert that Malfoy has once again tweeted him. He doesn’t bother reading it, knowing that if he does he’ll just get into another social media feud. Instead, he flips it so that he can’t see the screen.

“Nev, are you done redesigning the school website yet?” Dean presses the button on his bluetooth earpiece and microphone, hanging up on whoever he’d been talking to.

“Yeah, I’ll send you the link now.”

“Its so pretty, you’re so good at designing the minimalistic features,” Lavender sighs.

“Hermione wrote the majority of the coding.”

“Stop being modest, Nev, you know you did it all. I just helped you with the particulars. O’Connel sent out a Gryffindor chain; you got fifty house points for it.”

O’Connel is their newly instated headmaster. He’s a six foot three, twenty eight year old African American man who always has time for them, but makes it clear that if they can go to anyone else for their problem first, he will grately appreciate it.

A third year Slytherin boy went to Snape for advice on his recently starting menstural cycle the other day, and O’Connel gave him fifty house points just because he enjoyed the look on Snape’s face as he’d attempted to explain the uterus lining to a thirteen year old. Luckily, Pomfrey had taken pity on Snape and given the young boy a few months stock of tampons and some mild pain potions.

“Oh yeah, he’s a great headmaster, but I wish he’d stop sending us those white girl sausage vines.”

“Its no better than Harry sending McGonagall links to cat videos from youtube with the caption ‘this u?’”

“Shut the hell your mouth,” Harry glares at Parvati, “for all you know it could be.”

* * *

 

Puffing an excess of air out through his cheeks, Draco Malfoy lays back and rests his head in Blaise Zabini’s lap. He tokes on his cigarrette and looks out sideways at the school’s winter landscape.

Pansy Parkinson shivers and tugs the sleeves of her dark green Slytherin jumper down around her hands, tucking her knees beneath her chin and sighing heavily, breath discernible in front of her. Crabbe is propped up against the wall on the right of the arch, Goyle on the other side, both of them also smoking, Crabbe drinking from a flask of black coffee.

“I hate this time of year,” Pansy grumbles.

“I like it, I feel it in my soul,” Crabbe says.

Draco snorts, raising his eyebrow and lifting his head slightly. Crabbe smirks at him and Draco rolls his eyes, Blaise taking his cig off of him and taking his own toke, placing it back between his lips once he’s done.

“It’s the most Instagramable season, don’t lie, you love it,” Blaise smirks at Pansy as she snaps a photo of them against the backdrop of the murky mountains and castle turrets.

“I do not. You’re just really photogenic and you make the black and white filter look really good.”

“I hate my life,” Draco sighs and shakes his head.

“No you don’t, if we didn’t have technology you wouln’t be able to safely wind Potter up on the internet.”

“There’s nothing safe about it, he’s out for blood.”

Pansy rolls her eyes at him and huffs, shuffling over to Crabbe, snuggling up to his side and staring out across the grounds, the moon reflecting in her eyes.

She can’t quite believe they’re here. By all rights, none of them should have survived the past three years or so; they’ve spent it in the company of some of the most dangerous, ruthless, psychopathic serial killers in wizarding history.

So it’s a miracle that they’ve made it through the tailend of a war that’s crippled their culture and stole their livelihoods out from underneath them. A war that has shaken them all to their core; slapped them into sense, if you will. It’s been the harsh learning experience of a life time, and without a doubt, she’ll have the guilt of her childhood resting on her shoulders for the rest of her days.

The best she can do, is be grateful for the second chance she doesn’t feel she deserves; to use her assets for good, to unlearn as much problematic social conditioning as she can, and to be genuine in her apologies, to not lose who she is as a person, but to alter accordingly. Because she may be Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin, a very rich young woman, and a war veteran, but she is capable of being better, of being more, of righting her wrongs.

Its just still very surreal, that only four months ago she was a child soldier; and now, she’s a student again, stripped of any power her name had once held, sitting in an alcove of the turret of the school she grew up in, teasing her friends and trying to distract herself from the overwhelming unlikelyness of it all.

* * *

 

“What’s going on?”

A Hufflepuff fifth year frowns as she joins the throng of Slytherins around the wall. Draco thinks she’s called… Calla? He can’t remember, and he can barely place her face, but she’s soon followed by three of her friends, and her head boy, who looks equally confused.

“The password is revolting,” Blaise sighs, pushing himself up from where he’s been sat crosslegged on the floor. Brushing himself off, he tucks his hands in the pockets of his slacks under his robes.

“Revolting,” Lizzie, a fourth year, says out loud. Nothing happens, and Draco resists the urge to snort, instead clearing his throat, repressing a smirk as he replies.

“Its not actually ‘ _revolting_ ’. We mean it’s a revolting racist slur.”

There’s a resounding, uncomfortable quiet as they process the new information, before Calla huffs out a deep breath and nods. Her eyes are gentle and fond as she looks around at them all.

“Well, its settled then; you lot can camp out with us tonight.”

More quiet.

They’re… the Slytherins aren’t used to being trusted or respected by the other houses. They’ve always had a civil relationship with the Hufflepuffs; and there’s certainly less animosity between them than there is with the Gryffindors, but its still strange.

“I never thought I’d see the day when the Slytherins are rendered speechless.”

Dorian, a Hufflepuff seventh year, quirks his eyebrow and smiles crookedly, reaching out his hand for Draco to take. Draco allows himself to be pulled to his feet and clears his throat again, wetting his lips and letting his eyes do a quick sweep of the rest of them. He looks behind himself at his Slytherins. It takes them a moment, but they all nod once, and he turns back.

“Just one night,” Draco reasons, trying to repress the gratitude threatening to seep into his voice, inwardly touched by Hufflepuff’s kindness, and slightly embarassed by it. All destitution aside however, he will much preffer the cosy warmth of the Hufflepuff common room to the stone floor outside their own.

“Sure, and however many you need after that before the password changes again. C’mon, assholes, we’ve got a crate of butterbeer with our names on it.”

* * *

 

Draco feels Potter at his side before he sees him, and he simply relaxes further where he’s leaned against one of the alcoves. He’s openly watching the Ravenclaws inspecting the Slytherin entrace in all their mad-scientist-like glory.

“What are they doing?”

“The password is a racist slur,” Draco sighs heavily, crossing his arms over his chest and ignoring the light pressure and warmth of Potter’s chest against his spine, “they’re trying to change it for us.”

“Right…. I don’t get it?”

“Merlin, Potter, the password is a racist slur; we all refused to speak it out loud, so now we can’t get into our common room and dorms. What’s not to get?”

“Why – you _all_ refused to say it?”

“Not all of us. There were a few of the younger kids that said it; they… don’t know the weight it carries.”

Potter doesn’t say anything then, but Draco does feel a warm hand pressing against the small of his back and Potter leans more against him, a wordless attempt at physical comfort. It works immensely and eases some of the tension clinched between the muscles in the top half of Draco’s body. He lets out a slow, shaky breath and swallows.

“Where are you staying if you can’t sleep in your dorms?”

“The Puffs are letting us commandeer their common room,” Draco shrugs nonchalantly in an attempt to conceal the fact that he and his house are still bemused and bashful about being taken in so wholly and unreservedly by people that have every right to despise them.

“That’s… kind of them?”

“They’re kind people.”

“And the Ravenclaws are trying to help you by changing the password?”

“Right.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Potter whispers, aghast.

Draco raises his eyebrows in agreement, a small, soft smile playing at the corners of his mouth. They watch a bespectaled young girl with blue hair and rosy cheeks making noises of frustrated wonder as she casts several diagnostic charms that reveal the tight web of magic warding the entrace.

“Its fucking amazing how much better things are now. Between the houses, I mean,” Potter’s voice is low and slightly gravelly, and Draco really does smile this time, turning his head slightly to catch Potter’s eye.

“Its not perfect.”

“Nah, but we’re getting there. I mean, you’ve got these lot looking after you like you’re their own. Its amazing. A couple of years ago, you guys would never have let them down here, let alone accepted their help.”

Draco turns his head back towards the Ravenclaws and considers this, nodding.

“It is really rather awesome, isn’t it?”

“It really is. Why do you honk of butterbeer and weed?”

Draco snorts and grins, although his head gives a slight thump and the nausea in his gut churns a bit at the thought of alcohol.

“Because we’re living with the Puffs; I doubt we could have refrained from a party even if we tried. For peacekeepers, they’re really quite stubborn.”

Potter makes a small noise of amused agreement and they stay like that for a while. Draco can’t quite believe that they’re stood like this so comfortably, so relaxed and quiet, so casual. As though its normal for them to be stood so close together in such companiable silence, bar the occassional snort of laughter at the excitable Ravenclaws getting a chance to examine the complex magic binding the Hogwarts wards.

Its at least an hour before he feels Potter reach for his phone in his pocket, and the sounds of a few texts being sent off. Within minutes, a shit tonne of Gryffindor sixth, seventh, and eighth years turn up. They’ve releaved themselves of their robes and jumpers, shirt sleeves rolled up, grins on their faces and wands in their hands. Draco frowns and finally pushes off the wall.

“Potter, what is this?”

“We’re going to blow the bloody doors off.”

“I’m serious! This isn’t the time to be quoting Michael fucking Caine, Potter.”

Potter simply grins at him and winks, leaving Draco grasping for words, frustrated and confused once more. Potter pushes the sleeves of his jumper up to past his forearms, and pats Draco on the shoulder before joining the rest of his house.

“Right everybody stand back. We’re going to jinx this bitch into oblivion.”

Draco makes a pained noise and shakes his head, dropping it in his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. The Ravenclaws watch their lions with weary exasperation.

“We’ve been working on this for hours,” one of them say as she adjusts her blue tie where its squewif around her neck, “we’ve tried every spell we can think of and we can’t get it to change the password or let us in without it.”

The Gryffindors shake their limbs out and ready their stances for offense. Draco skirts quickly to drag some of the younger Ravenclaws out of the way and hey all move back behind them and within seconds, there are crashes and bangs and spurts of brilliant light.

The barrier around the wall falters only slightly, but holds strong, and after a good ten minutes of them growling and sweating and aggressively throwing every jinx they can think of at the wall, it doesn’t budge.

“Right,” Potter says, calling them off, panting slightly, wiping a line of perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand, “we need a shit tonne of explosives.”

“I can do that!” Finnigan practically orgasms, jumping up and down with his hand in the air. Draco rolls his eyes.

Eventually, the two houses come up with a plan about where to strategically place the explosives around the wall in order to blow it up, and Draco wisely doesn’t question where on earth they got so much TNT. He knows they’re going to be in _so much shit_ with McGonagall when she gets wind, but the teachers are just as powerless as students when it comes to the castle’s magic and the passwords, so its not like they really have any other option.

Come three in the afternoon, there’s a gathering of at least fifty students; Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Slytherins alike, all stood about thirty feet away from the wall.

Finnigan, Longbottom, Potter, Granger, Elgerson, Harris, Patil, Thomas, Fletcher, Howel, Lester, Callakinos, and Embarga are all crouched in a row in front, spaced out evenly with their fingers on buttons. Blaise is stood with his hands around Draco’s middle from behind, Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle stood side by side next to them, watching with expertly masked disbelief as their previous enemies band together to help them out.

Then there’s a large bang and they all stutter back a few steps, instintively shielding each other. A few loud whooping sounds come from the crowd amongst the coughing as the stone blasts itself apart and crumbles, leaving behind a large cloud of dust and a very big hole opening up into the Slytherin common room.

They all get detention every night for three weeks, but its worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vine antics, Shakira is involved, and some sexual tension starts to build.

Draco growls as he attempts to hack the CCTV to the Gryffindor bathrooms again. Instead he’s confronted with a takeover screen of his face photoshopped onto a giraffe fucking a donkey in the ass. He slams his hands down on the keys, typing the recovery code.

It takes him five minutes of firewall to push it back through the system and override it, and when he does, he tracks the IP. He’s not at all surprised when he matches it with Granger’s computer. Fucking genius bitch.

“Bit of light hacking before breakfast, I see. Risky doing it in the open though, mate; its illegal to hack private surveillance,” Blaise sits down beside him and pours him a black coffee from the pot, adding two sugars and stirring it before sliding it towards him.

“They shouldn’t have the surveillance if they don’t want me to try and hack it,” Draco says, pressing a distracted peck to Blaise’s dimple in thanks for the drink, immediately downing half of it before going back in.

“Look, its one thing ripping the shit out of Potter online, but breeching their privacy and leaking potentially nude content everywhere without their permission is an asshole move.”

“I’m not going to leak their nudes, Merlin, what do you take me for?”

“What _are_ you doing then?”

“I just want content of one of them singing in the shower. Something stupid that circulates for a bit and then dies out only to come back as an obscure meme like a year later.”

“Why don’t you just sneak up there and vine it?” Milicent shrugs as she slips in on the other side of Draco, having already piled her plate full of breakfast food.

His eyes widen as he realises how simple that idea is, and an evil, joyous expression settles into his features. He grabs her face and kisses her full on the lips, knocking her for six as he shuts his laptop and drops it into his bag. He grabs his phone and scrambles to step out of the bench, Milicent still recovering, Blaise appearing thorougly amused. Pansy raises her eyebrows at him as she arrives and he runs off, already getting up his vine app, fleeing gleefully from the hall, heading towards the Gryffindor tower.

Three hours later, six seconds of Potter singing and dancing to Hips Don’t Lie in front of a mirror, in his bath towel brushing his teeth, goes viral. The video shows Draco pissing himself laughing as his face pops up in the corner whilst he runs away again.

* * *

 

He’s lounging on the fountain when Potter finds him, and he sees him coming straight away, the hoard of students watching the vine on a loop parting like the red sea.

“Oh fuck,” Draco jolts violently and meelees his lanky limbs upward from Pansy’s lap, almost falling into the water and walking brusquely in the opposite direction, “fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“You little shit!” Potter yells; he’s about ten feet on his heel, and Draco is power walking now, glancing behind him. “When I get my hands on you I’m going to wedgie you so hard your pest of a little prick jumps back into your body.”

Unable to stop himself breaking into laughter, Draco falls into a sprint heading towards the grounds, Potter mirroring him. Draco flails in an attempt to outrun his enemy and not get his boxer briefs pulled all the way up his ass crack, almost falling over a couple of times.

"It was Bulstrode! I swear it was fucking Bulstrode's idea!"

"I'll tell her you tried to sell her out, you little ferret! She can have you after me."

"I usually ask to be bought dinner before I fuck my enemies, Potter,” Draco is still laughing slightly as he runs for his damn life down the hill, changing directions and scooting around Hagrid's pumpkins, leaping over spitting shrubbery and dubious looking plants, “but I can make an exception for my oldest adversary."

"I swear to fucking Merlin, Malfoy-"

“I can do this all day!”

“Good, because I’ve got the afternoon free and I’m going to kick your scrawny little behind.”

“I’m not scrawny anymore,” Draco replies, genuinely offended and still running, “I put on two stone in muscle.”

“Either way, I’ll tear you a new one.”

“You’re not helping yourself with the innendos, Potter,” Draco is panting now, sweating slightly as the wind blows a spray of light rain that adds an annoying humidity to the air and makes everything see-through and sticky and constricting. Potter finally nears him and he throws his hands up in surrender, still laughing, but genuinely wanting to stop him as he runs through a clearing at the beginning of the forest.

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry.”

“You’ll take it down?”

“I doubt it will make much difference, Potter, its already got around twenty thousand shares.”

“Right, I’ll just have to do it differently then.”

“Wait, what are you – _don’t_ – stop whatever you’re thinking of _right now_. I apologised. I’ll take the damn video down-”

“Sorry, Malfoy, tough luck. You’ll just have to keep looking over your shoulder. Because believe me, I’m going to get you back, and when I do, you’ll never see it coming.”

Draco snorts and shrugs, taking on an overly nonchalant demeanour.

“Do your worst, Potter. You’re too moronic to come up with anything nearly as good.”

Potter raises his eyebrows, and Draco becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Now, Potter is calm, thinking rationally, changing his approach. And Gryffindors thinking rationally is never a good thing, particularly when Draco spends half his life figuring out new ways to torment and humiliate them.

Potter is stalking closer now as well, one foot in front of the other, slow and purposeful. Draco finds himself stepping backward in time with it, failing to keep up the indifferent and mildly amused façade as he backs up against a tree and Potter continues to come closer.

He has a cocky expression on his face, ridiculous curls flopping over his forehead in that stupid way Draco absolutely does _not_ find endearing.

Potter’s hands are in the pockets of his fitted slacks, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tightening the material around biceps that have certainly developed rather well in the past year or so. Potter is also building a gradual, rather intricate plethora of tattoos along those forearms, and they… aren’t the most unnatractive thing Draco’s ever looked at.

 _Uh oh_.

“You look a little peachy, Malfoy. Are you feeling alright?”

“Fuck off, Potter. If you’re going to do something, get it over with.”

“ _But that’s no fun._ ”

Draco’s spine flattens against the tree bark, and Potter is less than two centimeters away, looking him straight in the eyes, breath fanning over his face.

“I want to watch you _squirm._ ”

“In your dreams,” Draco swallows hard, trying his utmost not to let his eyes drop to Potter’s lips, willing himself to stay still, to ignore the way his heart thuds violently against his breast plate, mouth dry, lungs constricted.

“You have no idea,” Potter chuckles, shaking his head.

Draco might be refraining from glancing downward, but Potter doesn’t have the same concern, as his slightly hooded lids flutter, and green irises flicker for a second to Draco’s lips. He watches the moment breathlessly, before Potter finally sighs and steps backwards out of Draco’s bubble, smiling as though nothing has just transpired.

“Remember, Malfoy, keep looking over your shoulder.”

And then he’s gone.

* * *

 

“Oh, mate, bless your cold, bisexual heart.”

Draco slumps in and dramatically drapes himself over Blaise, burying his face in his neck. Pansy rolls her eyes, stroking Milicent’s hair where she’s curled up against her body. Milicent grins.

“The vine thing was a good idea though,” Milicent considers, playing with the hem of Pansy’s vest top.

“A good idea that’s going to get me killed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Potter wouldn’t kill you, he wants to suck your dick too much,” Blaise grins and Draco lets out a loud whine. Draco rolls over away from him, burrowing his face in the pillow and curling in on himself.

“No one would blame you; being attracted to Potter isn’t exactly a rare occurance. He’s all tall and toned with his floppy curls and gorgeous green eyes and beautiful brown skin. And those tattoos. Just a shame he’s a self-righteous asshole.”

“Look, its okay to have bi angst over your enemies. We all get it once in a while.”

“Shut up, oh my god!”

“Really though, Blaise went through a whole year of wanting to fuck George Weasley,” Pansy recalls thoughtfully.

“Who doesn’t want to fuck George Weasley? That trickster little shit is hilarious and hot as hell.” Blaise rolls in Draco’s direction and attaches himself to the back of his body. He snuggles in closely and closes his eyes, “now stay still and be quiet, I’m tired and I want to nap before the common room party tonight.”

* * *

 

Harry sighs, relaxing back against Ron’s shoulder massage, sat between his legs, typing on his phone. Hermione sits upside down in the armchair, hair waterfalling to the floor, wand twirling absently in the curls, eyes staring into the common room fire.

“Please tell me you’re not tweeting Malfoy again?”

“I’m not tweeting Malfoy again.”

Ron pauses to slap Harry up the back of the head.

“Ow! What? I told you what you asked me to.”

“You know I’d usually be all for humiliating a bunch of Slytherin gits, but you have to be careful with Malfoy, mate, you don’t wanna fuck everything up,” Ron warns him.

“There’s nothing to fuck up! Jesus christ, why does everyone think there’s something to fuck up?”

“So you’re _not_ using Malfoy’s obvious hard on for you as a form of manipulation?” Hermione raises an upside down eyebrow at him, her mouth curving at the corners.

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that sort of accusation, Hermione.”

“I’m being serious, mate, don’t get in too deep. Pranking is all well and good, but you do something stupid, you could genuinely ruin whatever you may or may not have with your… begrudging frenemy.”

“Enemy. Enemy, Ron, Merlin, Malfoy is our _enemy_ , remember?”

“Sure, if that’s what helps you sleep at night,” Ron says airily.

“Ron is right, Harry, Malfoy isn’t the sort of person who lets people break his heart twice.”

“I’m… fuck, I’m not breaking his heart! I couldn’t anyways, because he hates me and I hate him and he tried to humiliate me. I’ll only be returning the favour.”

“Well, what have you got planned?”

“It involves chicken feathers, pva glue, a go-pro, and a new spell I’ve been working on…”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A panic attack, a new year ball, and to new beginnings.

“Potter, you better get running because there isn’t a fucking place in the world you can hide now.”

When Malfoy approaches him the following week looking thoroughly dishevelled, Harry automatically puts up a shield charm. He sighs, stretching his arms behind his head and giving him his full attention. That’s a bad idea though, because Malfoy is… quite something when he’s not all prim and proper with his flawlessly ironed rich boy shirts and slacks.

His blonde hair is a mess, like he’s been running his hands through it a lot, and his plaid shirt is untucked and slightly crumpled, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, top few buttons undone, not a tie in sight. And he’s wearing a rather wonderful pair of dark blue jeans, clearly expensive and tailoured specifically to him. And he has that slightly dangerous look in his eyes; the one that gets Harry’s pulse going a touch too fast against his jugular.

“Running isn’t my style anymore, Malfoy,” Harry replies, his laptop out on the table in front of him. He’s half way through an essay on the romanticising of abusive relationships in Wuthering Heights for Muggle Studies. In another tab, he has applications for wizarding universities in progress, having finally finished his personal statement and just about gathered all his letters of recommendation; he’s just now waiting on Flitwick and he’ll be able to transfer the application fees.

It makes him nervous, he’s not going to lie, and he doesn’t know just yet if he’ll be able to handle the scale of a highly populated campus. He barely manages Hogwarts and it’s three hundred students, made worse by the fact that his healer has just changed his meds for his anxiety and PTSD. But right now, Malfoy is threatening him, so its not like he can really reveal all of that.

“It took us three fucking hours to clean up the dorm this morning. Do you know how difficult it is to clean velvet furnishings and silk sheets when you’re also covered in glue and fucking chicken feathers, Potter? _Egyptian cotton_ for fuck sake; do you know how expensive that is to import?”

“I don’t. And I don’t really care to be honest. But the internet loved watching you all squak and flail around. I don’t think anyone has ever heard a chicken-like man loudly cursing about Italian leather before,” Harry says, wetting his lips, his mouth curving in amusement.

“Potter, honestly, I’ll fucking sue you so hard your entire Gringotts vault will have to be taken down and rebuilt.”

“I’m looking forward to it; I’ll have my lawyer send some information over, Angie’s been a little bored since the trials. A good old property damage suit will perk her right up.”

He returns his attention to his laptop and ignores the fact that there are several people nearby watching the exchange. The great hall is usually less busy than the library or the common room, and the large open ceilings, bigger spaces around him at the long tables, and more communal sense of introversion, is a lot more soothing than the occasionally claustrophobic Gryffindor tower, or stricter and authoritative library.

Malfoy glares at him, but instead of walking away, he sits down opposite him and begins to roll his own cigarrette. He lifts his bag onto the seat beside him and takes his own laptop out, setting up a station of his text books and partly completed coursework, along with his baccy tin, two flasks of coffee, and his phone.

“I mean, I’m flattered, Malfoy, but I am trying to study here, and it’s a little difficult with your pointy chin and face of thunder staring me down.”

“I have three assignments due in by midnight tonight and I don’t actually have the time to waste on you today, seeing as I spent the morning cleaning up your mess; so don’t flatter yourself, and shut the fuck up.”

Harry frowns now, as Malfoy gets straight into his work, typing slighty too hard and too fast. There’s a clear knot of tension between his shoulder blades, jaw tight, crystal blue eyes fixed determinedly on the screen. He’s obviously completely furious with him still, and Harry knows he’s going to get it in the neck later, when he least sees it coming. But right now, he’s far too tired, slightly stoned, and stressed about sorting out these applications, so for once, he leaves it.

They work for a few hours in relative quiet, getting through far too many sugary soft drinks, and barely acknowledging each other. About three in the afternoon however, Malfoy’s phone alarm beeps at him, and he grits his teeth, turning it off. He slips a packet of pills out of his pocket, and places a couple on the table in front of him. Casting another heating charm on his most recent cup of black coffee, he downs them.

Harry doesn’t pay too much attention to it until a moment later when his own watch bleeps obnoxiously. He sighs, taking his diazepam, running a hand through his hair before swallowing, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. Its only when he cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders to ease the muscle tension, that he notices Malfoy watching him, frowning.

“Do I have something on my face?”

“No. No, I just… I didn’t realise you were on meds.”

“What’s your point?” Harry feels defensive, given that Malfoy has just dosed up too. He has a thing about showing weakness in front of people he doesn’t trust; it makes him panic, and he doesn’t like the surprised way Malfoy is looking at him.

“Nothing, Potter,” Malfoy sighs, shaking his head and focusing his attention back on his screen, “absolutely nothing.”

* * *

 

The following weekend, Harry wakes up with bright blue hair and all of his clothes shrunk three sizes too small. To begin with, he’s sort of pissed off, and sort of impressed. That is, until Ron gives him the idea of wearing eyeliner and an earring and not shaving for a couple of days.

So when he walks into the great hall in tight jeans and a t-shirt that barely fits him, looking like he’s just spent the night in the backroom of a filthy grunge bar, Malfoy can do little else but stare at him gormlessly, his prank having totally backfired.

Of course, Harry is completely oblivious as to why everyone starts blushing when he strikes up his usual conversations with them, confused when he’s as tactile as he usually is. He touches people’s arms and grasps their hands when he laughs, ruffling people’s hair and resting his hands on their knees or thighs. Its just how he is in general.

He has no idea why they all look like they’ve just come out of some sort of extra heated sauna, and feels rather unsettled when he goes to bed that night, having agreed with Ron that he can wear some of his clothes into London the following day to get a new wardrobe.

The dorm boys just give him a range of exasperated expressions when he asks them about it, and he goes to sleep frustrated and confused, but determined to put it out of his mind.

* * *

 

A few weeks pass before Draco interacts with him properly again, and its mostly because Potter starts freaking out in the courtyard during a shared free period. He’s with Patil, and she looks like she’s going to have a heart attack, totally unsure as to what the fuck is happening. Potter is gasping desperately for breath, eyes glistening with tears.

“I – I don’t know what… Harry, fuck, what do I do?”

“Move over a second, Patil. Has he taken his meds today?”

“I didn’t even know he was on any!”

“Okay, Potter, get up the emergency chat app on your phone and tell me when you took your meds last.”

Potter’s hands shake violently as he continues panicking, typing fast and awkwardly, handing Draco the phone when he’s done.

“Right, you missed a day and… I think that says anniversary? Anniversary of… oh right, shit, okay. Hey, Potter? Potter, look at me for fuck sake,” Draco clicks his fingers in front of his face, drawing his line of vision.

“What’s wrong with him?” Patil’s voice is shrill and frightened, and he swallows tightly.

“He’s having a panic attack. Potter, keep looking at me, okay? Right here, now breathe. Good, in through your nose, out through your mouth. Stop thinking. Hey, focus! Come here a sec,” Draco takes him by the bicep and moves him out of the glare of the autumn sun, under a more discreet alcove. Patil follows them, frowning as Draco hands her the phone and she reads the scrambled text on the screen.

“I – I – just – I-”

“Potter, don’t try to talk, you know it makes it worse. Count with me, alright? 1, 2, 3…”

Patil sits down beside Potter on the small stone perch and grasps his hand hard, resting it in her lap, not talking, just being there. Draco crouches to Potter’s level, looking up at him, insistantly maintaining the eye contact. He nods steadily along with Potter as he slowly starts to calm down, tears streaming down his face as he tries to breathe.

He takes his wrist firmly, and presses two fingers to the veins, counting on his watch at the same time. He sighs, holding Potter’s face still by the chin so he can check his vitals.

When Draco starts to pay attention to Potter’s appearance properly, he notices that he’s sweating all over; his brown skin is pallid, he’s trembling, there’s a hint of vomit on his breath,  his pupils are dialated, and there are dark lines under his eyes. He thinks back to the packet Potter had taken his pills from; diazepam, used for panic disorders, and anxiety. But these are different, more symptoms of PTSD than anything.

“Is there anything else you’re supposed to be taking?

“They – I – I was on paroxetine b-but they-”

“Changed your meds. Right, okay, Pomfrey, now.”

“No! No M-Malfoy, I’m fine. I just – I can’t.”

“Potter, you’re re-experiencing and you just had a severe panic attack, you need to rest and stop lying to yourself,” he says in a quieter voice so only the two of them and Patil can hear.

“Why the f-fuck do you c-care?”

“I know how-” Draco hesitates for a moment, glancing at Patil, not exactly comfortable with admitting to his mental health issues to more people than he really has to. She looks away formidably and he returns his attention to Potter, “I _know_ how terrifying this can be, and it will only get worse if you try to ignore it. Its probably just your body adjusting to the new meds, but if it isn’t, you need to make sure you’re doing everything you can to make it better. I’m the last person you want around you right now, I get that, but at least let Patil take you to the hospital wing.”

Potter takes a few seconds to continue composing himself, before he blinks, looking between Draco and Patil and nodding once, small and defeated, but satisfactory. Potter sighs and swallows heavily, wiping the tears from his face with the backs of his hands like they’ve offended him, and wets his lips with the tip of his tongue.

Draco pushes back up to full height and straightens his own tie, making eye contact with Patil properly this time.

“Make sure he tells Pomfrey everything so she can fill out an accurate report. He has to drink lots of water, but slowly, and something sugary too. And he’s not allowed to discharge himself for at least three hours whilst he rests, okay?”

Patil nods once, pursing her lips to keep from flashing him a knowing smile. She reinforces her grip on Potter’s hand and helps him stand. Draco tuts and watches them leave, waiting until they’re back inside the building before he huffs deeply and flops down where Potter had been sitting. He runs a hand through his hair and blows air out through his cheeks, tipping his head back against the wall behind him.

Fuck, he hates this.

But his brooding is interrupted by his phone buzzing in the pocket of his slacks, and he’s reminded that he has two assigments due in by the weekend, and another twenty tumblr asks to answer, most of them probably either hate or questions about his very public online feud with his allusive childhood enemy.

* * *

 

“Malfoy!”

He continues walking after the first shout, grouchy today and preferring to ignore anyone he possibly can. Its only when Potter’s voice shouts him a second time that he growls to himself and pauses, turning, flashing him an obnoxious smile and tucking his hands in the pockets of his snugly tailoured slacks.

“Sorry, I just wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For the other day… I just… there aren’t a lot of people who really know what to do when I panic like that-”

“Potter, is this going to take long? Because I’m kind of in a hurry.”

“Right, sorry.”

“Do Gryffindors spend 90% of their time unnecessarily apologising?”

“Yeah. We spend the other 10% praying at our Dumbledore alter and hating you guys.”

Draco forces himself not to smirk and flicks his eyebrows upward, looking at Potter expectantly, waiting for him to get on with it.

“Thank you. That’s all I wanted to say.”

Draco sighs and nods once, turning to walk away.

“Hey, Malfoy?”

He grits his teeth and pushes away his frustration, pissed off that he continuously finds himself unable to neglect Harry Fucking Potter and his stupid fucking face.

“What now, Potter?”

“Are you okay? You look a little wired.”

He – that wasn’t the question he’d been expecting him to ask, and he feels the breath ache in his lungs for a moment, desperate just for a second, to tell someone what’s got him so temperamental. But he lets the moment pass, and instead swallows tightly, blinking away the stinging in his eyes and nodding.

“I’m fine, don’t worry your pretty little head.”

“Its okay to be sad you know? Its not like we’ve had the best few years,” Potter takes a few steps closer.

Draco tightens his jaw and observes Potter properly. He’s gotten slightly thinner, and there seems to be permanent dark circles under his eyes now. His hair is mess of dishevelled curls, as usual, and he’s wearing a black denim jacket over his shirt, tie, and bespoke black jeans; tired, but slugging through, as usual.

“Careful, Potter, we’re enemies, remember?”

“Sure we are, keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night,” Potter smiles slightly, a knowing look in his eyes that makes Draco uncomfortable.

“On my Egyptian cotton sheets,” Draco finally lets his mouth twitch into a small smile. His heart beats slightly too fast beneath his ribs, but he feels significantly calmer that he had about thirty seconds ago, and Potter clearly picks up on that too.

“I’ll see you later, Malfoy.”

“Don’t let the door hit your giant head on the way out.”

* * *

 

Harry swallows a gulp of champagne and leans back.

He’s just hung up on Dudley, who rings him once a week now, and who is actually starting to feel like a genuine cousin rather than the kid who’s bullied him his whole life. He ignores the buzzing of his phone in his blazer pocket, knowing its probably just a couple of retweets and a facebook notification.

Instead, he lights up a cig and relaxes as much as he can, allowing the buzz of alcohol to soothe his nerves, and the almost-January night to cool his heated face. He runs a hand through his mussed curls and readjusts his pantos lenses where they rest on the bridge of his nose.

It’s the New Years ball; the first they’ve had since coming back to school to take their NEWTS, and O’Connel and McGonnagall have really gone all out with it.

There are singing statues playing quietly in the background of the trickle of tastefully placed water features, the hum of slightly louder music from inside the castle charming and intoxicating. It makes Harry smile as he watches people dancing on the other side of the open double doors. They lead out onto the stone balcony that stretches around the whole circumferance, complete with wide steps down to the grass.

He's abruptly tugged from his train of thought however, when two pale, spindly fingers take the cig from his mouth. He shoots Malfoy a highly offended look whilst he tokes on it and smirks, leaning against the stone beside him.

Harry wants to stab himself in the face.

It is eternally unfair that someone he’s supposed to hate so deeply, looks so incredibly _delicious_ in an amply tailored three piece suit. He’s unbelievably greatful that Malfoy can’t read his mind, because the images flooding it at that moment in time are hardly PG.

“The Weasley girl was looking for you, I heard her asking Granger where you were.”

“Yeah, I’m hardly the most co-operative date these days,” Harry sighs, slipping his phone out again and sending Ginny a quick text explaining that he’s okay and just needs a quick time out.

“I thought you said you don’t do running anymore.”

“I don’t, this isn’t running, this is trying not to have a panic attack and ruin the party. Plus, Madame Pomfrey has had far too much to drink to treat a jumped up little shit who can’t control his emotions.”

“Oh skip the wounded little boy act, Potter, it’s not attractive.”

Harry rolls his eyes, stealing his cig back. Malfoy has the gaul to shoot him a petulant glare, lighting his own and tucking his free hand in his slacks. The movement nudges his blazer to the side slightly, revealing more of the fitted waistcoat hugging his narrow waist, and broader shoulders.

Harry’s not in a relationship with Ginny anymore; he respects and loves her too much to subject her to a commitment like that. Not that she isn’t ready or can’t handle it of course, but he isn’t in the headspace she deserves right now, and she’d agreed with him when they’d amicably split that they’re no good for each other at this point in time.

Maybe it’ll be better in a couple of years, but they’ve both spent the last three years in situations beyond their control, restricted and carrying the wieght of the world on their shoulders; they both deserve some time to experience more than just each other. The fact that they even want to experience anything other than each other is kind of indicative anyway.

Also he’s pretty sure she has a thing for Pansy Parkinson and that she’s been too considerate to tell him about it.

“Oh for fuck sake,” Malfoy interupts Harry’s thoughts again, as he grabs at his arm and tugs him back behind a small canape wraped in vines of lilies and ivy, ducking his head out of sight. He peeks through a gap to watch Professor Sprout come bustling through the double doors, dressed to the nines and clearly on a mission.

Harry raises his eyebrows and leans sideways against the railings again, thoroughly amused as Malfoy crouches slightly, cigarrette still in his hand, grimacing.

“Uh, Malfoy, I don’t think-”

“Shut your mouth, Potter, I lost a bet with Sprout and she’s out for my blood.”

“What the fuck did you barter with?”

“A rare Norweigan plant I thought I’d be able to get through an old friend. Turns out the guy still hasn’t forgiven me for fucking his twin brother.”

“Jesus, Malfoy, for someone who values tradition you’re one hell of a slut!”

“I don’t appreciate your misogynistic rhetoric, Potter.”

“You’re a man! And an ex-racist, I might add.”

“Touche. Sē calē gēchē?”

“Sē phirē bhitarē calē gēchē,” he replies, barely masking the surprise in his voice when Malfoy uses Harry’s original language. He knows purebloods are generally multi-lingual anyway, but its been a long time since anyone spoke to him in Bengali.

Malfoy stands back up hesitantly, a frown knitting his brow, a suspicious look on his face until he’s back at full height and can confirm Harry’s claim. He huffs and relaxes again, continuing to smoke, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue as they move back out into the open, taking up their previous positions.

Harry turns this time however, looking out across the grounds; the forest to the left, the black lake to the right, backdropped by the hills and mountains, all illuminated by the moon. He thinks about whether he’ll miss this place when he leaves, whether he even sees a home here anymore.

He doesn’t. At least, not in the way he used to.

There are memories here, no doubt; the echo of laughter he barely recalls. It carries on the wind, essenced with that wonder he had felt upon coming here for the first time, seeing the castle in all its grandeur, the Quidditch pitch where he had discovered a new and unpresidented way to feel free and alive, The Great Hall where he had been truly introduced to magic, to a family he never believed he’d have.

But all of that is marred now, by the ghosts that follow him around; the grass on which he had once wrestled with Ron, sat on during sunny days to get homework done, sunbathed on in their free time, the soil is soaked with blood now. Its still beautiful, as a landscape, but when he looks at that grass, he can see all those limp, lifeless bodies. Those people who had died believing so solidly in him, in their cause, in equality and justice. Some of them were so young, so innocent, and held so much potential.

He swallows tightly and closes his eyes, ducking his head, his breath shuddery in his chest. He tries to be discreet about it, to let the moment pass unnoticed as he recovers from it, but Malfoy is still beside him.

“Potter?”

“Hmm?”

“Āpani āmāra sāthē ēkhana'ō??”

“Hām̐.”

“Āpani āpanāra auṣadha grahaṇa karēchē?”

“Hām̐.”

“Ki tōmākē birakta karēchē?”

Harry clasps his hands tightly together, focusing on breathing through it, on counting steadily in his head, latching onto anything to ground him. But then there’s a warm hand on the small of his back, and Malfoy steps closer, clearly to be more circumspect, shielding him mostly from the view of prying eyes so as not to make a scene or cause a controversy.

“You should have just stayed in the dorms if you couldn’t deal with it, you idiot,” Malfoy tuts. There’s something to his quieter, softer tone that sounds like fond exasperation, although the syllables are still spiky and mildly judgemental. Harry actually feels himself calming, as the gentle pressure at the bottom of his spine brings him back to earth and fades out the darkness falling over his consiousness, working him through it, keeping him equable.

“I’m – you don’t have to baby me, I’m fine.”

“Clearly.”

“I just had a moment.”

“I had no idea,” Malfoy drawls, although when Harry turns finally and looks at him, there’s evidence of concern in his expression.

“I’m going to university in September.”

“Wow, Potter, talk about a martyr complex,” Malfoy’s eyebrows hit the top of his head and an expression of dissapproval falls over his chiselled features.

“Funnily enough, you aren’t the first person to say that.”

“ _Shocking_. Really though, what were we thinking coming back here?” Malfoy sighs, shaking his head. Harry shrugs, letting out an exhausted, breathy laugh.

Malfoy hands him back his half-empty glass of champagne. Tipping the rest of it over the edge of the stone banister, Harry places the tumbler on a floating silver tray nearby, taking his glasses off and cleaning them with a handkerchief. He shrugs out of his blazer when he puts the glasses back on, he’s feeling hot and constricted after the mini panic attack. He also loosens his tie and undoes the top two buttons of his shirt, draping the releaved garment over his shoulder.

Malfoy lights up another cigarrette, having finished his other one, and hands it to him willingly this time. Harry watches him discreetly as they both face the towering castle once more, sharing it.

Malfoy is different, Harry realises; _so_ different to the boy he’d fought with for years, yet somehow exactly the same.

Obviously Malfoy has grown a couple of inches taller and filled out; his cheekbones fit his face properly now, and his chin doesn’t stick out so much, his angular nose now in proportion with the rest of his handsome features. And his eyes are different too; they used to be so full of malevolence, so possesed by that spark of fear driven rancor. Now they’re more haunted, subtly softer, Harry thinks, and wearied by experience. He’s less acuminous all together really. Its strange how he hasn’t noticed lately, how much one of his worst enemies is just far too subdued to be an enemy at all anymore.

Of course, he’s still hostile and carries that demure edge of aristocracy to his posture, that inherently proud taste for all things exquisite; but its not as prominent as before, and its shaped by an edge of understanding and selective empathy. Harry inwardly groans at how much he _doesn’t_ hate him anymore.

Harry’s phone dings in his pocket, making him jump slightly, and he tuts, taking it out and raising his eyebrows when he reads the reminder on the screen.

“Its nearly midnight, I didn’t realise it was so late.”

“Shit,” Malfoy remarks quietly, blowing out air through his cheeks and glancing sideways at him, a small smirk curving his lips, “hey, Potter, bet you didn’t think you’d be seeing the New Year in next to me, did you?”

“Its hardly how I expected it to go, no.”

“Well, many miserable returns,” Malfoy nods at him, his smirk growing into a soft grin, his eyes crinkling slightly at the corners.

Harry blinks away the tightening in his chest, and nods back. They gesture at each other with their cigarrettes as the crowd indoors comes filing out, excitable, mildly drunk, and clutching at each other. The teachers move out onto the grass at the bottom of the steps as all three hundred students pack into the balcony.

They both put out their cigarrettes, and their bubble bursts.

Hermione finds Harry immediately and comes rushing to him, pressing a kiss to his cheek and sliding her hand around his bicep, leaning against his side, her other hand linked with Ron’s. Ginny leans against Harry’s spine, tucking her chin over his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his waist from behind.

“All good?”

“All good,” he promises her, smiling genuinely.

Malfoy has also been located by his posse of extremely well dressed Slytherins, and Zabini winks at Harry from the other side of Malfoy. Harry nods back.

The moment feels strange, like the acknowledgment of something he hadn’t been aware of before. He pushes it off however, when Crabbe and Goyle rock up in their tuxedos with Bulstrode, Parkinson slips in beside Zabini, and they all turn their attention to the front as McGonnagal magnifies her voice.

“I will never be able to truly articulate how incredulously proud I am of every single one of you on this night, on the cusp of a New Year we never thought we would see in. We have suffered greatly this year, but I believe in you as I always have, and I know you will make this New Year a better one.”

With that, she lifts her wand above her head in sync with the rest of the faculty, and fireworks spark loudly, high up in the air above them, illuminating the inky sky with colour and smoke, and a deafening cheer sounds along with it. There’s a sense of unity, of combined, lightly solemn hope that can’t be fully explained; its just there, in the magic of their survival, in their continued endurance, and in their youth as it slips away into the night.

When he glances to the left, Malfoy has his tongue down Zabini’s throat. Harry rolls his eyes, laughing as Ginny hugs him tight and he throws his arms around Hermione and Ron, pressing a rough kisses to the top of their heads.

For a second, he meets Minerva’s glance, and she smiles at him with that familiar love, that pride, that respect that he knows is reflected in his own line of sight. She nods softly at him, and he winks at her affectionately in return.

This night is one of many in the following months, he’s sure, where he will feel disjointedly and elately happy and sad at the same time; where he will feel himself tearing up surrounded by his friends and fellow students, where he will feel a part of his childhood leaving him, making room for something else. A future, perhaps, that was never set in stone, never guarunteed, most likely never to come for him. But it has. He has a future.

And for this moment, he lets that overwhelm and warm his blood, washing over him. He’s smiling, he’s alright, and he will continue to survive for as long as possible, as the boy who _lived_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation of Harry and Draco's conversations in Bengali:  
> Draco: "Has she gone?"  
> Harry: "She has gone back inside."  
> ........................................................................................
> 
> Draco: “Are you still with me?”  
> Harry: “Yes.”  
> Draco: “Have you taken your medication?”  
> Harry: “Yes.”  
> Draco: “What’s bothering you?”
> 
> I've just been using google translate, so I don't know if those translations are one hundred percent accurate. If anyone wants to correct me at all, please feel free.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter brings snarky joint vlogs and snowy shenanigans.  
> Summer brings difficult conversations and Blaise attempting to drown Ron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blimey I've missed writing this fic. 
> 
> Any questions, you can ask me on here or on tumblr (steelchestedanddiamondeyed), or twitter (@thekindofworld).
> 
> Enjoy, let me know what you think, and as always, thank you. 
> 
> Dee xx

With the onslaught of January, and then February, comes the Scottish snow. Icicles hang crystallised and dripping from the turrets of the castle, and a blanket of snow brings with it flu season, white skies, flushed cheeks, and discernible breaths in the air.

It also drags along the tradition of students engaging in competitive snowball fights, which of course, means that there’s an uptick in interhouse detentions.

Harry spends most of his time inside, cramming for the final exams that both the seventh and eighth year students will be taking over the following three months, almost glued to his laptop. And if he’s bad, of course Hermione is worse; at one point, she actually has to have physical therapy in her fingers because she’s spent too much time typing.

But, on the odd occasion that he isn’t working or in lessons, he goes for long walks on his own, hiking up the hills and coasting the grounds. His new bird, Helena, swoops around nearby, perching on his arm or flying along beside him.

He sometimes sits near the black lake, watching the younger students trying to crack the three meters of ice that covers its surface. He knows that he’s soaking up as much of this place as he can before he has to say goodbye to it.

He's on one of his scheduled Saturday walks on the outskirts of Hogsmede when he runs into Malfoy again.

“Potter, you’re barely covered up, how have you not caught hypothermia yet?”

“I’m a wizard, you fucknut, I cast heating charms. See, Hermione taught me this too,” Harry moves aside slightly as Malfoy catches up with him and he slows his pace, the floating jar of fire he keeps beside him coming into his eyeline.

Malfoy is unfairly fucking beautiful in this weather, and despite himself, Harry has to admit, he always has been for as long as he can remember. The snow compliments his porcelain complexion, cheekbones and nose mildly flushed, his lips a more prominent mauve colour, crystal blue eyes standing out against the scrim of winter.

He’s wearing a stupidly thick, grey woollen jumper under a dark green gillet with a polo label on it, and a black silk scarf tucked in; black leather gloves, his usual tailoured jeans, and some dark brown muck boots. His entire outfit screams well-to-do, and Harry fucking despises that it somehow does it for him.

“You finally got out of your room then. I’m surprised, the Gryffindors haven’t shut up about how worried they are about you and your looming hermit status.”

“Hey, at least I’m a good-looking hermit, it could be worse.”

“Who’s this?” Malfoy gestures his head at Harry’s owl as she whooshes and dives around them.

“Helena. She’s a spectacled owl, and unlike her owner, she actually seems to like you,” Harry observes, raising his eyebrows as she flies on her back in front of Malfoy, staring at him.

“She’s beautiful,” Malfoy smiles, holding his arm out for her. She lands on it, letting him stroke her with one finger.

“She’s… new. I’m still getting used to her.”

“After Hedwig,” Malfoy acknowledges as they start off up another slope heading back towards the hills closer to Hogwarts.

“I’m surprised you remember her name.”

“Why? She was basically attached to your damn hip, Potter, the whole bloody school knew her name.”

“She was quite a private owl actually, didn’t really like being noticed too much.”

“Tough luck then, she was a snowy owl; bright white, big yellow judgy eyes.”

“Perfect for me,” Harry smiles sadly as Helena takes off again, flying higher above them this time. His phone bleeps, and he takes two pills from the packet in his pocket. He accepts the bottle of water Malfoy offers him, nodding gratefully and downing it. He gets distracted by his screen however, when he notices five tumblr notifications. They get to the top of the hill and sit down on a rock.

“Well that’s new.”

“What?”

“Ah, nothing, just a couple of people requesting that I do a video with you, since I sort of mentioned we don’t actively loathe each other anymore.”

“That’s new for you? I’ve been getting those requests since we got technology at Hogwarts and we started feuding online,” Draco says.

Harry isn’t that popular on the internet; and by that he means, he’s mildly popular, but not in the sense of the big muggle Youtubers or Viners or anything. People know of him enough to ask him questions about his life, and reblog/retweet/share his posts. He has about three thousand followers on Tumblr, and about four thousand on his Twitter, Facebook, and Vine accounts, but he doesn’t really consider himself a big thing. Mostly people follow him because they’ve found him through Malfoy and their constant prank wars or public banter.

He continues to look confused, and eventually Malfoy tuts and rolls his eyes, taking Harry’s phone from him, bringing up the front camera, and flicking to record, pressing the red button.

“Hey, losers, Draco here. As you can see, this is Potter’s account, because he’s too much of a scaredy cat to actually ask me out loud if I’ll record a video with him. Say hi, Potter,” Malfoy turns the screen towards Harry, who glares at him, but focuses on the camera nonetheless. He smiles, not necessarily too shy of it; he has been Vining for the better part of a year now anyways.

“Hi, guys, apologies for that rude greeting, he’s never really been very good at manners.”

He snatches the phone back off Malfoy, who smirks and moves in closer so he’s mostly pressed against Harry’s body to get in shot, looking into the lens over his shoulder. Harry swallows as discreetly as possible, trying not to get too distracted by the close proximity and the surprising warmth of Malfoy’s lithe frame.

“Potter, I was raised by some of the richest people in England, I know my fucking manners.”

“Clearly.”

“He’s just trying to make me look bad to mask the fact that he actually likes me now.”

“That’s bullshit,” Harry makes a face, but when he sees himself on the screen, he knows its unconvincing and lets out a frustrated huff of air that’s visible in the air.

“You’re probably wondering why we’re sat in about six inches of snow on top of a fucking mountain,” Malfoy moves the topic along.

Harry blinks and nods, remembering that they’re not filming this just to snipe at each other. The whole point of this, is that they don’t actually deliberately sabotage each other anymore.

“Right, yeah. We’re still at the boarding school we go to right now, and its slap bang in the North of England, so we get this kind of weather in the New Year all the time. Its super beautiful, but also kind of difficult.”

“Like me then,” Malfoy grins, waggling his eyebrows. Tutting, Harry softly elbows him in the ribs. Malfoy just looks even more amused, resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder. Again, Harry has to remember how to breathe.

Helena chooses then to drop and flutter, landing in his lap.

“Oh yeah, and he has a pet owl. I understand this is a weird thing in the rest of the world, right? People don’t normally have pet owls that they can take to boarding schools with them.”

“Nah, owls are sort of rare everywhere else. I know you’re not really connected with mainstream society apart from online, since even when you’re not at school you live in the middle of nowhere,” Harry teases him.

“I think someone’s bitter that I live in a giant manor house, and you don’t.”

“Again, that’s bullshit, I’m a rich orphan; I could buy a big manor house if I wanted one.”

“All that money, and you still can’t buy some common sense.”

Harry glares at him, but moves the conversation along.

“Anyways, this is Helena. She’s about six months old, and I got her because I miss my… uh, my old owl, Hedwig. She died around fifteen months ago now. We were just talking about this, actually. Draco has a pet cat”

“Yes. Her name is Pavo. She’s a Siberian kitten, and I love her.”

Harry turns his head slightly to look at Malfoy. It’s the first time he’s ever actually heard him say he loves someone, and it… yeah, it really suits him. He puts up so many walls sometimes, it’s kind of adorable that he loves his cat so much.

“So, you guys wanted us to talk about why we haven’t really been arguing online or pranking each other lately; which is kind of awkward, because we haven’t actually talked about it ourselves yet…”

“Yeah, about that. Potter, why haven’t we been fighting lately?” Malfoy puts it to him, smug and expectant. Harry is grateful he can blame his blush on the cold. He swallows again, wetting his chapped lips and drawing in a deep breath.

“I guess we just don’t really need to anymore…”

“Awh, look how cute he is when he’s all flustered.”

“Malfoy, I swear to Merlin-”

“What he means is, he’s in love with me and can’t bring himself to hurt me ever agai-”

He’s cut off when Harry grabs a handful of powdery snow, and drops it over his head. Malfoy tugs in a sharp breath, staring murderously straight ahead at the phone. Harry purses his lips to keep from laughing, but fails, giggling, actually fucking squealing when Malfoy mirrors him, tipping snow over him.

“I might have just started up that feud again, guys, sorry.”

“I hate you, Potter.”

“Riiiiiiiiight so you just, randomly happened to be walking the same way that I was in the middle of winter on a Wednesday afternoon?”

Malfoy really does go red this time, and Harry almost gasps, because he had been joking, and… oh my god, Malfoy had known he was going on the walk, and had been seeking him out.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Potter. The fresh air is good for my lungs, that’s all.”

Harry nods over-dramatically, grinning now, relaxed; he’ll think about the more pressing connotations of Malfoy actively trying to spend time with him later on.

“Well I think that’s enough for today.”

“Yeah, I hope you assholes are happy; we made a video about why we don’t take the piss out of each other anymore, only for me to end up looking like an idiot on camera. Fuck you all.”

“What he means is, goodbye, and have a nice day,” Harry presses the red button again, smiling at Malfoy as he continues to glare at him. That is, until he shoves him back in the snow and steals his phone once more, posting the video with his own caption, holding it way above his head. Harry tries to reach for it, lurching forward, knocking Malfoy backward again.

They struggle for a bit, the both of them laughing now, getting even more covered in snow as it begins to soak through their clothes. It’s only when Harry finally gets his hands on his phone, that he registers the fact that he’s on top of Malfoy.

Suddenly, even with the cold seeping through his clothes, he feels hot and constricted, breath visible as it tufts out between his lips, grappling desperately for something to say, wanting to move, but frozen, one knee either side of Malfoy’s hips, one hand on Malfoy’s bicep, the other holding his IPhone tightly.

“Well if you wanted _this_ , Potter, you should have just said so.”

This breaks the mental block that’s fallen over Harry’s subconscious, and he tuts and slaps him on the shoulder, moving backwards off of him and holding his hand out for Malfoy to take, hauling him to his feet.

Harry forces himself not to be awkward on the walk back to the castle, even tutting and throwing an arm around Malfoy’s shoulders, dragging him along playfully in a headlock, mussing his hair. They end up having another snowball fight in which they both finish hunched over shouting mercy, before he calls a time out and they leave off to their separate houses to get cleaned up, tired, but in good spirits.

That night in fact, Harry is so chilled in the afterglow of the strangest afternoon of his life, that he manages to finish three essays and get them all uploaded before two in the morning.

* * *

 

“Draco, is there any particular reason you’re covered in bruises and won’t stop smirking?”

Draco abruptly makes a point of not smirking as he tugs his shirt over his head and rolls his shoulders and neck, cracking the bones back into place and stretching out his pleasantly sore muscles.

He shrugs at Blaise, who is lounged in bed naked, silk sheet barely covering his dignity. He’s propped up against his own headboard watching Draco getting ready for his morning potions lesson with Slughorn and the Gryffindors.

“Y’know, you’re in this class too, you could get ready for it sometime soon.”

“This level of perfection requires only clothes to be presentable to the public, and if I could get away without them, I absolutely would. Now stop avoiding the question; why are you all black and blue?”

“It’s nothing, Blaise, leave it.”

“Draco, if someone’s been hurting you again-”

“No one has been hurting me. Not really, anyways. Unless hurting involves being a huge cock tease, and emotional... stirrings.”

“Oh no, Merlin forbid the stirrings. So, its Potter then. What did he do?”

“Nothing. Except be gorgeous and agonisingly incorrigible.”

“He clearly wants to fuck your brains out; I don’t know why you don’t just go for it,” Blaise fixes him with a long-suffering expression that pins him in place, and he sighs, flopping down at the bottom of the bed opposite his friend.

“It would be like admitting defeat. I’d be the first to back down. Also, its weird as fuck. It’s me and Potter. Potter and me. Together. It’s just not right, okay?”

“You know you’re not making any sense at all right now? Draco, as your best friend, and the best fuck buddy you’ve ever had, I have to tell you… shut the fuck up!” Blaise raises his voice a level, throwing a giant pillow at him, knocking him back and leaving him glaring.

“What the fuck?”

“Everyone is going to leave this place in July, and they’re going to move on and go onto different things and different people. You don’t have a lot of time left. So, figure out whether you want to be with Potter or not, and get over it.”

Draco sulks for days after that, and only really stops when Blaise finally gets around to introducing his new boyfriend to the group, and Draco is forced to be an active participator in the colourful warnings being dished out. He goes with the ‘I’ll cut you to shreds and dunk you in a vat of lemon juice if you hurt him’ threat, to which the aptly named Arthur considers with honest eyes and a serious expression, ever the Ravenclaw.

* * *

 

“Malfoy, a word.”

Ginny is confident he’ll give her some time; she’s on good terms with Pansy since their little fling at the Easter party last month, and she’s rarely given him an excuse to personally despise her, despite her blood status and rebellious nature of course.

She approaches him with a missionary expression on her face, shoulders straight, back strong, eyes conveying as much peace as she can manage when addressing someone she’s spent the past six years passively feuding with. They’re enemies simply by association.

He takes a moment, wordlessly assessing her, gauging the situation, clearly wondering whether he’ll need to have defences up or not. When he deems her fit for his attention, he sighs and nods. Making excuses with Goyle, who eyes her suspiciously, Malfoy takes her gently by the elbow and leads her away from their table at the library, down one of the isles.

“Make it quick, Weasley.”

“I intend to. Harry is going to university when he graduates next month, and word of mouth is that you’ve been accepted to the same one that he has.”

“I’d say it’s a rather accurate word of mouth; makes a change for you Gryffindors. Switched up your gullible nature for a less trusting Slytherin approach?”

“You know full well that I don’t have a gullible bone in my body, Malfoy,” she rolls her eyes, leaning back against the bookcase and crossing her arms over her chest. He looks at her again, deeper this time, and it takes a large effort not to squirm under the scrutiny. She maintains her firm front.

“Very well, continue.”

She’s always hated that about Malfoy. It’s as though he’s above her; that she has to work to be worthy of his time or understanding. She forces herself not to bristle and tightens her jaw, flashing him a taut smile.

“Harry takes meds for anxiety and PTSD.”

“You seem to be operating under the assumption that I give a shit.”

“Don’t play coy with me, Malfoy, I’m too smart to be taken with it. I’m fully aware that you’re friends with him now,” she tells him, raising her eyebrows, daring him to deny it.

“How long is this going to take? Because I have a final to study for and if this is all you’re here for, I can assure you, you are not the first person to come to me analysing my relationship with Potter and thinking that you know it better than I do.”

“I’m here because I want to know he’ll be safe.”

“I’m not a child anymore, Weasley, I’m not going to lay a finger on your precious prince’s little head.”

“I’m not worried about him being safe from you. If it’s true, and you are friends with him, you’ll never hurt him again. It’s a switch that happens when you fall into Harry’s orbit; you either love every inch of him, or you want to kill him.”

“Fucking tell me about it,” Malfoy grumbles, looking stressed out now as he rubs at his eye sockets and glances at her again, gesturing for her to get to the point.

“I want to know he’s not going to crash and burn. He’s mentally ill, Malfoy, and he’s not particularly good at managing it if he’s left to his own devices. You’re going to be on campus with him twenty-four seven. I’d be happier knowing that he has someone looking out for him, making sure he doesn’t get lost in his own head.”

She watches Malfoy as he considers her, taking in her words and mulling them over, seemingly conflicted about something. Eventually, he sighs again, and ducks his head for a moment, nodding once and lifting his face to look at her again. The breath catches in her throat when she sees the honesty in his eyes, the sudden surface layer of vulnerability and understanding being allowed to seep through the cracks in his facade.

“I know about Potter’s mental illness. He’s had a few panic attacks around me, and I’m... look, Weasley, if you think I was planning on spending all year in the same vicinity of our self-destructive friend and not check up on him occasionally, then you clearly don’t know me particularly well. Which is fine by me, because I don’t care for you very much. But if you’re looking for assurance that I’ll have his back if he needs me, you needn’t worry that red head of yours; I look out for my own.”

She surveys him for only a few more moments, judging his genuity before she nods once, uncrossing her arms and pushing off the shelf.

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t reply or even react to her gratitude, so she leaves, comforted and feeling strange, as though she’s just had a conversation with a black squiggle on a rumpled piece of paper. Of course, that’s not something she has a very good history with, so she goes immediately to find Luna and calm down, spending the rest of the day mulling it over in better detail whilst Luna plaits her hair and hums softly to herself.

When she sees Harry later, she doesn’t mention her talk with their allusive childhood nemesis, and doesn’t bring it up again, confident for the first time in ages, that he might actually be okay.

* * *

 

Summer washes in as suddenly as its counterparts, blowing winter away and settling itself gently in the lush green grass of the grounds. It beats its heat down on the trees, whistling through their leaves with a gentle breeze, giving almost apologetic relief to its humidity.

With the tail breath of May brushing pollen through the air, and the chirping of small birds decorating the acreage with gradual adieu, the students of Hogwarts simply take their constant state of mildly erratic stress outside. They wear as little fabric as possible, protected by sunglasses and a diverse assortment of hats.

It becomes a common sight, to see Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy sat together among both groups of previously divided peers, under the shade of the willow trees that screen the banks of the black lake from the sky’s stunning glare, and its backdrop of vast blue.

It’s on a Saturday morning that they settle on sacrificing their weekend, swapping it out for two Muggle Studies essays, a complete annotated diary of dreams for Divination, a dissertation style portfolio for both Charms and Defence Against The Dark Arts, and a ten thousand word folder of animal files for Care Of Magical Creatures.

That’s how the large group of study addled young adults find themselves curled against the barks of trees and laid out on the grass. They’re all resting on each other in some way, absently touching each other or mumbling helpful facts to each other, sweating profusely with the onslaught of the 30*C temperature, and gasping as Hermione eventually grows tired of their whining and sets up cooling charms to surround them all.

“Can someone Google Pagan mythology for me?”

“The Google search for Pagan myth is muggle orientated, but it’s incredibly diverse and I have a lot of notes here if you want?”

Pansy simply stares at Granger, nonplussed and amusedly waiting for her to inevitably explain such a concept. As she does so, Pansy extracts herself from between Blaise’s legs, crawling over to sit crosslegged beside her. Draco smirks from where his back is comfortably arched against a tree, watching Pansy resting a hand on Granger’s thigh as she talks animatedly.

“I don’t know why she’s bothering, Granger will eat her alive.”

“Yes, but she’s not in the habit of spitting her food back out once she’s done with it, unlike a few I could mention.”

Draco rolls his eyes as Potter adjusts himself so his knees are bent upward and he has somewhere more comfortable to continue sketching a Blast Ended Skrewt, glancing sideways at him.

“They might actually be good for each other,” Draco remarks.

“It’s not happening, Malfoy, Hermione is as ace as they come.”

“I’m sure that’s an ironic statement if there ever was one. And you think Pansy can’t be in a sexless relationship? That’s sort of insulting, Weasley, I hope you have a way to recover from that narrow-minded assumption.”

Potter swats his arm, but Draco catches his wrist in his hand and playfully pretends to bite at it, grinning as Potter snatches it back, although he’s smiling, the mirth glittering in his molten green eyes. Fuck sake. They’re not molten. Or pretty. They’re just damn eyes.

Although, they’re quickly becoming the bane of his existence.

“I wasn’t being narrow minded, I was making an observation. Not that it matters because it’s not going to happen.”

“Weasley, do you have a crush on Parkinson?”

“Fuck off, Malfoy,” Weasley flushes scarlet. Potter sighs heavily and nudges Draco, tapping the watch on his wrist. Draco tuts and grumpily fishes his meds out of his bags, downing them with the giant bottle of Lucozade that Goyle passes to him.

Longbottom trips on a log and falls into the shallow water on the bank, and Draco has to force himself not to burst out laughing, swallowing it as Bulstrode and Thomas roll their eyes and stand to haul him back to his feet. He looks thoroughly embarrassed and very wet, but smiles warmly at his aid, clapping Thomas on the shoulder and pressing a rough kiss to his temple, nodding gratefully at Bulstrode, who grunts a sullen reply and returns to her seat on the grass between Crabbe and Patil.

“Who founded the 1952 legislation for equal opportunities in all wizarding places of work?”

“Labette. But it didn’t make much of a difference until 1980; it was Johannsson that pushed for there to be an equal amount of people of colour and lgbt+ personnel hired to each employment establishment.”

“Fuckin bullshit,” Draco grumbles, shaking his head as he changes two of his citations and types in a whole new paragraph.

“Fuckin history,” Granger remarks, agreeing with him.

It makes him feel so odd when she does that. Of all of the Gryffindors, he’s hurt her the most over the years. Some of the things he’s said and done to her have been unforgivable and revoltingly racist, and he’s unsure as to his boundaries around her now. He’s not sure whether he’ll ever particularly like her or enjoy her company, but that’s more to do with her personality than her blood nowadays, and he’s still debating whether it will be insensitive of him to pull her aside at some point and officially issue and apology.

“Holy shitballs its hot.”

There’s a rounding hum of accord and after another hour or two of failing to get much done in the blistering summer heat, they all mostly abandon their work, packing up laptops and IPads, and dragging it all out to the sandy bank of the lake, settling down on towels and stripping off.

They look glorious, Harry thinks as he pushes up on his elbows and watches Malfoy playing chicken with Zabini on Crabbe’s shoulders, and Parkinson unsubtly eyeing up Ron’s naked chest. All of them.

They look young. Uncharacteristically so. Young by their standards anyway.

There’s something about the collection of diverse skin shades, soft and shining under the bright sun, the air filled with laughter and lazy banter, filthy words snapped playfully across scorching sand and glistening water. Harry feels a jolt of sadness coil softly in his stomach, and he catches himself for a second, squinting even under his clubmaster sunglasses, letting the emotion pass through him freely, embracing it, feeling nostalgic for a freedom they’ve only just been permitted.

The freedom to tease each other, to threaten each other without being necessarily serious, to splash about in water that has so much pain slowly washing from its landscape, to be what they are without apology.

They are kings and queens of their old war ground, for once not entirely haunted by the misgivings of their youth, old rivalry and betrayal quiescent as Ron and Seamus join the playfighting, giving up on the games and ending up simply jumping on each other in the water, Blaise dunking Ron and snickering.

He can’t help staring at Malfoy’s torso as he moves in the lake, his eyes following the jagged lines of the sectumsemptra scars. They spread out across his lithe stomach and criss cross, still slightly reddened against his white skin, and dipped in places but raised in others.

Harry feels guilty for so many things through the years, but this, perhaps, is the worst. Knowing Draco will carry those around with him forever, obvious and deep and reminiscent of so much blood and pain; Harry hates himself for it.

As the sadness fades beneath his skin, Harry lays back against Padma, who is sat behind him, watching their friends with a soft smile and playing with Harry’s curls. She draws them back into braids so they don’t stick to his forehead in the hazy heat. Her body is warm and slender against his spine, and the feel of her fingers against his scalp lulls him into a lazy doze.

When he opens his eyes next, it’s still relentlessly hot, but he’s resting against a more defined chest, white legs bent either side of his hips. He stirs slightly and frowns, his mouth dry, mind numb, stomach slightly nauseated. Immediately, Draco hands him a bottle of water, and he grunts his thanks, remaining in place against him, downing it in one.

“I told them not to let you sleep in the fucking sun.”

“I’ll be fine in a minute, quit fussing.”

“Nice little nap, Potter?”

“Alright, actually, just what I needed.”

“Take your meds too.”

“Yes, mom.”

“What’s the matter?”

Harry sighs and shakes his head, ignoring the way that he can feel Draco’s scars grazing against his spine.

“Don’t they bother you?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“The scars?”

There’s a short silence, and Harry swallows heavily, sitting up and turning to face Draco, crosslegged and trying to gauge his expression.

“They used to. To begin with, I couldn’t even look at them. But then… well, I realised they were nothing compared to-” Draco cuts himself off for a second, the breath catching in his throat as he ducks his head and purses his lips, getting it together before he meets Harry’s gaze again, lifting his right arm “do you know what this mark means, Potter?”

“Uh… it means you were a deatheater.”

“More than that,” Draco clears his throat, seemingly forcing himself to look more comfortable as he himself sits up and reaches out, taking Harry’s hand and pressing his fingers to the top of the skull, guiding them around the faded curves of ink.

“Okay?”

“It wasn’t like just getting a muggle tattoo. The physical tattoo was just a small part of it. It needed to be bound to something, and this was one of its kind. It required a huge amount of dark magic, and you know what that’s like to touch in even the smallest amounts. When you make something like this, when you brand someone like this, you have to get into their head, blacken their soul. They have to be on par enough with the magic, so that the injection of that darkness doesn’t kill them. Actually, very few people even survive getting the mark; it’s like a test too, to see if you’re strong enough”

“That sounds… unpleasant,” Harry shudders slightly just thinking about it.

“It is. I was barely alive when he was finished with me. They had to hold me down and put something between my teeth so I didn’t break my own jaw.”

“Holy shit,” Harry’s skin feels suddenly cold, even under the glare of the sun, and he feels his insides churning, heart jumping, the nausea returning. Draco politely hands him the water again, and Harry downs some more and gestures for him to continue.

“It’s like a bad reaction to a drug overdose. The effects can last up to three days afterwards. I was hallucinating for about thirty-six hours and the pains and fevers where still fucking with me for about fifty.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. But back then, it seemed like it was worth it. And I didn’t think I had a choice in the matter. In the moment, I sort of assumed I was going to die either way.”

“And… you wanted that? You wanted to die?”

“You’ve never thought, during any of this, that it would be so much better if you just… didn’t exist?” Draco inquires, watching him.

Harry pauses and thinks about it for a moment, remembering all the times he’d been so tired, so frightened, so exhausted with catastrophe after catastrophe. And he remembers losing it with Dumbledore when he was fifteen, smashing up his office, screaming until he lost his voice, screaming for it all to just stop, that he wanted out.

“More times than I’ll care to admit.”

“Exactly.”

Pansy settles herself beside them, wordlessly handing them both a cig and a light, the sun slowly starting to set in the sky. Harry sits up only to tug his t-shirt back on, settling back against Draco as the rest of them congregate gradually back into a circle. Hermione puts a summer playlist on her IPad, leaving it playing in the background.

Around 7pm, logs are levitated into a pile and set on fire, flames crackling under the sound of Corrine Bailey Rae on Spotify. Conversation morphs from one topic to another without much pause in between, easy and complicated at the same time.

They sleep outside that night, laid in a group passing a cigarette around, the sand going cold beneath them, an unspoken something in the air; a something unidentifiable and inarticulable. But it’s alright like that. It doesn’t need to be said, it doesn’t need to be understood. It just is.

They just are.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco is tired and emotional, Harry pulls, and there's a graveyard scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've renamed this fic 'Brave New World', just because it felt more fitting. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, and as always, thank you.   
> Dee xx

When Draco finally slugs in after five hours straight of lectures and seminars going gruellingly into depth about the medicinal properties of scarab pincers in their different concentrations, Potter is floating about ten feet in the air. He’s sat crosslegged on a buoyant pile of leather tomes, surrounded by several other levitating books and scrolls. His typing fills the few empty spaces in the air, and he’s sipping intermittently from a hovering thermal flask of coffee.

Draco has been awake since six this morning; it’s been raining all day, his lecturers have been in awful moods, and his attending at St Mungos will not stop pushing him.

Draco doesn’t even bother to ask why their living room looks like the inside of Potter’s scattered brain, simply collapsing on the sofa, flicking his legs up sluggishly and tugging a cushion up behind his neck to support it.

The clustered throbbing behind his eye sockets almost makes him wish he was back on the battle ground; the awkward, unrelenting ache searing and gathering so tightly along his sinuses that he wants to scream but doesn’t have the strength or concentration left for such a noise.

After about ten minutes of trying to simply will the pain away and genuinely wanting to cry, he squints one eyelid open to watch Potter stand up confidently, waving his hands around a bit to make the floating books into a downward spiral staircase.

Draco closes his eyes again, only to sigh heavily when warm, brown fingers settle on his temples and rub in a gentle, steady motion, not really registering it when Potter helps him sit up slightly, before leaning back again, resting his spine against Potter’s chest.

“Merlin, can you even talk at the moment?”

Draco simply grunts in reply, the lethargy really settling deeply into his bones now, and he wonders briefly how he got up the stairs at all.

“Meds?”

“Missed lunchtime,” Draco’s voice is quiet and gravelly, and even though his eyes are still closed, he can practically see Potter rolling his eyes, a frown knitting his brow.

“I stink.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Fuck off, Potter.”

“I would but I’m comfy now.”

Draco grumbles softly, mustering the strength to brush Potter’s hands away, disliking the way his heart stutters and his hairs stand on end, a warm sensation curling in his gut, in far too much danger of spreading lower. This is what draws him determinedly into a hunched sitting position.

“You’re going to run yourself into the ground, you idiot.”

“How long have you been flat out working today, Potter?”

“That’s not the point-”

“Look, I’ve had a really long fucking day, and for once I am honestly not in the mood to fight with you. Please, Potter, I’m scrambled enough today without your particular brand of head fuck.”

Potter doesn’t reply, but in his sore peripheral vision, Draco can see him processing the meaning behind the words, see his shoulders slumping at the rejection of physical contact but respecting boundaries too much to push it.

That thing hovers between them again; that denied tug of something else, of something more, something terrifying and maddeningly frustrating. Something Draco absolutely does not have the capacity to properly deal with right now.

The almost intoxicating graze of Potter’s fingertips either side of his face lingers there like the papered breath of magic on the surface of his skin, slowly working its way deeper, a tattoo just starting to set.

Draco’s body is covered in them now, invisible marks that never quite leave him, a reminder not only of what he can’t have, but of what he also craves. Like cigarettes and coffee and the thrill of a storm rolling in. Ephemeral and addictive.

Everything hurts, everything is messy and scribbly and complicated in his head, and he finds himself needing desperately to leave; it’s imperative to his ability to breathe.

“I need a shower.”

He doesn’t shower. Instead, he runs the taps in their shared bathroom, stripping off immediately, far too tired and impatient to bother waiting for the tub to fill before he gets in, settling his lithe form against the white plastic.

He loves this particular piece of furniture very dearly.

When they’d first moved in two months ago, at the beginning of their courses, Potter had insisted that they not spend ridiculous amounts of money on things they don’t need to. This had been Draco’s one allowance. Besides, its second hand, vintage, with gold steel casing and cast iron clawfeet for stands, curled in an intricate design; beautiful and classic.

It makes him think about all the people who have laid in it before him, tired and worn down after a long day, the scolding hot water kneading its way into their muscles, the steam warm enough to make them sweat, chasing away the knotted migraines lodging behind their eyes and making them light headed.

It makes him think about whether they too were stupid enough to let themselves have feelings for people they can’t have, or whether they were more logical, above such idiocrasy; mind over matter.

Somewhere in the fog of waterlogged sound in both his ears, he hears a shuffling outside the bathroom, a body settling against the wall beside the door, and the heavy sigh of someone equally exhausted by what still makes everything so much harder to deal with these days.

Having the memories that they have, locked so irreversibly in their brains, amplifies almost every negative emotion. Minor weariness, becomes weighty fatigue that drags every step and lugs at every movement; apprehension, becomes a coalescing series of downward dips into dread and panic, anger becomes fury, resentment morphs into the sort of hate they’re simply far too broken to carry with them so constantly.

And the confusing thing is that it connects them.

It has always been there, if Draco lets himself look deep enough, on nights like this when he’s too unguarded and lost to bother with Occlumency; this... knowing. This awkward, inconvenient sort of recognition that’s lead them back to each other so many times, drawn them to save each other despite their better judgement and position. As though a lifeline has buzzed between them from the second their lives were intertwined, incapable and unwilling to let each other die, because then they would truly be alone. There would be no one else who could quite understand.

He sinks further beneath the water until he’s completely submerged, the light from the two large candles burning on the window ledge casting strange, fragmented lines above him, brushing across the bridge of his classic Greek nose, flickering over his narrow cheekbones.

He draws shameful comfort from Potter’s near presence, letting it soothe him instead of aggravate him.

When he comes back up for air, he dozes in and out of consciousness for a while, not sure if he has the balance or decorum to lift himself out just yet. When he does leave the bathroom, Potter isn’t outside anymore, and when he returns to his own bedroom, simplistic and tasteful, he drops down naked and still slightly damp, desperately curling in on himself and finally allowing sleep to whisk him away.

* * *

 

Harry needs to get laid.

He decides that’s what’s causing his headaches and irritable behaviour. It’s been a good six months since the last time he had sex, and he hasn’t had blue balls like this since he was sixteen. Not that he ever really had much time to resolve the issue of course, what with saving the world and everything. But now he does have time. Sort of. When he’s not running himself ragged trying to keep up with coursework.

The point is that now the world won’t literally end if he takes a night out to unwind, have a few drinks, maybe get his dick sucked.

For a moment, when he gets home from his Friday night lecture, he considers knocking on Draco’s bedroom door, waking him up, asking him if he wants to get in on the whole clubbing thing. But Harry knows if he disturbs Draco’s slumber now he’ll live to regret it in the form of some sort of elaborate prank, and also if it’s his goal to get the mess out of his head and pull, he knows it’s a bad idea for Draco to be there. It will only make everything a hundred times more complicated.

Instead, Harry showers, dresses in a decent shirt with sleeves that he rolls up to his elbows, skinny jeans, and his Reiss Arnold brown leather boots. He trims and shapes his stubble and pushes his glasses up his nose slightly, assessing himself in the bathroom mirror.

He doesn’t even bother with his hair anymore; his curls are messy as hell and he doesn’t have the time right this minute to bother with styling them. Instead, he draws in a deep, shaky breath, and wets his lips, swallowing the anxiety coiling in his gut, reminding himself that he’s a twenty-one-year-old war veteran who defeated a dark lord; socialising like a normal person is not as scary as it seems.

He leaves a quick note for Draco on their kitchen counter mentioning that he’s gone out with Cassie and Jake from his course, and that he may or may not be home until the morning.

It’s not so much cold, as it is the end of summer, that light spray of rain breezing softly against his face as he exits their block of flats and lights a cigarette, calling Cassie and leaning against a lamppost across the road, waiting for her to pick up.

“Heeeeeeeeeeey, loser.”

“You’re already drunk.”

“Hell yeah. Get your butt over here and catch up!”

He snorts, grinning, wetting his lips.

“I’ll be there in a couple of minutes, just leave the door open.”

“No problem – fuck, Jake, don’t touch that! Dammit, please hurry up, your human puppy is driving me to the brink already.”

* * *

 

Draco hates mornings.

They’re unnecessary, awkward, and his mouth tastes like a toilet. His eyes are always dry and itchy, and he always feels as though he’s been hit by a stunner a couple of times in a row. Everything is tight and cold and shocking, and he doesn’t fucking like it. Not even a little bit.

If he could just switch straight from being asleep, to midday where he isn’t asleep and doesn’t want to kill a man quite so viciously, he’d be much happier.

So, when he stumbles into their pokey kitchen, hair skewif, cotton pullover creased, pyjama bottoms hanging low on his hips, eyes half open, throat scratchy, he has to take a moment to not shoot himself in the head. There’s a woman already in there.

She’s short, chubby, golden skinned, and unfairly gorgeous for someone who just woke up. She’s also dressed only in Potter’s oversized Quidditch jersey.

Reiterated; he fucking hates mornings.

“Well he didn’t tell me his flatmate was hot.”

He pauses in the doorway, blinking himself further awake reluctantly, and swallows the malicious retort clawing at his tongue, simply snorting at her and moving around her to flick on the kettle.

Pavo curls around his feet as shovels in four spoons of coffee and two spoons of sugar, needing it dark and fast if he’s going to manage not to be an asshole to this unsuspecting lady currently standing awkwardly in the middle of their floor, shifting on her feet.

Pavo meows loudly until he bends and lifts her, holding her against his chest and stroking her absently, scratching softly behind her ears. She looks up at him with big purple eyes and her expression is berating as she glances between him and the room’s other occupant. He narrows his eyes at her and if she was human, he knows she’d be tutting at him.

“Was there something you needed?” he doesn’t quite keep the distaste out of his tone, and the woman flushes, drawing in a shaky breath.

“Actually, I was going to make Harry some breakfast.”

“Bare slice of burnt toast, milky coffee.”

Her expression changes again, lips parting slightly, recognition dawning on her face. Her plump, mauve lips curl into a small smirk, and it’s his turn to feel uncomfortable; that smirk is far too much like his own, and his heart thuds once in his chest.

“Right, sorry. Anything else?”

“Yes,” he says, clearing his clogged throat as he turns to her, sips at his coffee with the limb that isn’t holding his long-suffering cat, and leans against the kitchen counter, “make sure he takes his morning meds; sometimes he forgets.”

He chucks Potter’s packet of pills at her, and she just manages to catch them against her collar bone, taken aback once more, fixing him with a questioning look.

“Meds?”

“More of a third date story.”

“I don’t think there’ll be a third date.”

Draco bristles, tensing his jaw and rolling his tongue around his mouth, hot anger rushing to his head. He fucking hates how protective he is of Potter lately, of how unreasonable he is about not being with him, but not wanting anyone else to be with him either. He knows he’s being a total prick. He’s just having difficulty actively trying not to be.

“Just fuck off then. Don’t waste his time.”

“I don’t intend to, especially since I’m clearly stepping on your toes.”

He squirms then, shooting her a look of venomous intent, hugging in on himself and avoiding eye contact; Pavo snuggles at his neck, whining at the tension in his body. For fuck sake, is it that obvious? Even people he’s only just met are starting to see it.

“I can assure you, my toes are perfectly fucking fine.”

“You’re so cute, I kind of want to punch you in the dick.”

“Yeah, you and everyone else I’ve ever met.”

She laughs. Actually laughs at him. And she tugs the hairband from her wrist, tying her mass of brunette curls up behind her head and nodding.

“I’ll bet there’s a _whole list_ of them. Okay, so I’m going to take him a bottle of water and these pills, and then I’m going to shower and get dressed and leave. I’m also going to leave my number right here. It’s for either of you, if you ever choose to take your head out of your ass and hit me up; we could angry fuck sometime.”

He slips out of the kitchen, nursing a dark mood and a still softening morning wood. Fuck coursework and fuck mornings and fuck beautiful women. He’s going to sleep for another few hours, and if anyone disturbs him, he’s going to throw the hissy fit of the century.

* * *

 

“SSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Draco snorts as he slams a bunch of leather bound books down on the kitchen island, taking a petulant satisfaction from Potter’s high pitched whine of pain. Potter shakes his head and drops it to the marble countertop, covering his scalp with his arms.

Despite Draco’s irritation at just seeing him however, he inwardly groans. Potter looks stupid before ten am. And by stupid he means the biggest fucking cock tease he’s ever encountered.

His hair is even more of a ridiculous floppy disarray of curls than it usually is, and he always insists on being shirtless, which means Draco is forced to look at long, toned flanks of tattooed brown skin that calls out to be touched and tasted. Honestly, at this point he’s convinced that Harry Potter has been put on this earth for the soul purpose of torturing him.

He looks painfully adorable all hungover and sleepy, and it makes Draco’s brain calm, his heart jump, and his cock hard. Pavo hops up on the other stool, and then up on the counter, slinking over to Potter and licking at his hand in greeting.

“Oh, sorry, Potter, am I being too loud? Like you when you clambered in at three in the fucking morning.”

“Uggh, I know, I’m sorry, I was pretty out of it and you know how bad I am at being quiet when I’m drunk.”

Draco just grumbles and chucks a cigarette at him, ignoring the way his chest contracts at the stunning smile of gratitude he’s treated to when Potter lifts his head and stares at him through half-lidded green eyes, scar only just visible through the curls flopping over his face and falling in his eyes. He turns down the wireless radio playing a muggle station, some indie soft rock song. He casts an airing charm so Pavo isn’t breathing in any harmful chemicals.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“What time did Steph leave?”

“About an hour ago.”

“Ah, you met her then?”

Draco avoids eye contact as he rolls his own cigarette, keeping his eyes down and concentrated on his fingers as he papers the rizzla with the tip of his tongue and lights up, shrugging.

“I might have pissed her off a little, yes.”

“Are you even capable of not being an asshole?”

“Before twelve noon? No, and I don’t give a shit about it either.”

“Oh sure, like you don’t give a shit about anything, right?”

Draco simply grits his teeth and flicks his eyebrows up once in wordless agreement. He can feel Potter bristling without even having to look at him, and he ignores it, flipping one of the books open beside him and starting up his laptop. He turns on his phone for the day and glares at the two missed calls from his mother, and a text from Blaise about a ball his mother is planning for her birthday.

“I take it you had a good night, then?”

“Yeah, it was decent. You should come out with us next time.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Potter,” he sighs, already beginning to type, opening his emails and scrolling through them, bringing up three essays he’s working on.

“Why not? Cassie loves you! And… well, Jake wants to fuck you.”

“Jake is the scrawny one, right? With the blue eyes.”

“Right.”

“Interesting.”

Draco glances up briefly from his screen to catch Potter clearing his throat and drawing in a discreetly shuddery breath. Draco smirks, slightly enjoying the fact that Potter now has a taste of how he’s been feeling all morning. Pavo makes a noise of discontent, as though telling them both off for being so idiotic.

“Relax, Potter, I’ve got too much work to bother with a relationship at the moment.”

“I know.”

* * *

 

Harry wakes up the following fortnight feeling absolutely awful. Everything in his body aches with despair and there’s an ache behind his eye sockets, remnants of the hours he’s just spent tossing and turning and drifting in and out of consciousness.

Somewhere in his head, he’s known this day has been approaching for weeks; but he’s been ignoring it in favour of being able to function like an actual human being. Right now, however, he sort of regrets not facing up to it. Maybe if he’d been properly emoting the past month, he’d be more prepared to get through the next twenty-four hours. But he hasn’t, and he feels like pure shit.

He lays there in bed for a little while, willing and willing himself to get the fuck out of bed and not let the sadness drown him, but he can’t make his body move save shifting to stretch out his muscles, and he doesn’t particularly have it in him to care very much.

After about twenty minutes, he hears shifting in the room beside him, and the skittering of cat claws on the laminate flooring. There’s a pause, a drawn out quiet, and then a soft knock at his door.

“Cm’in,” he calls in a low, unenthusiastic voice, and his door clicks, a tall, lean figure slipping in and closing it behind him. It’s still dark outside, but the birds are starting to wake up, the last of their fellow drunk uni students starting to arrive back in taxis.

Draco sits at the end of the bed, back against the wall, legs out across it’s width, head hung slightly. Pavo jumps up and nuzzles her way under Harry’s arm, licking his shoulder a couple of times before settling, her tiny, delicate body a comforting pressure against the side of his chest.

“My mum called,” Draco says through the darkness after another ten minutes and Harry sighs, nodding.

“She alright?”

“Andy slept over with Teddy last night; they’re looking after each other. They’re going to the graveyard later on.”

“I should probably go too.”

“Hmm,” Draco says, dropping sideways and curling in on himself near Harry’s hip. Harry scoots his hand lower and gently starts cording it through Draco’s hair, still staring at the ceiling, inhaling one breath at a time. “I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“Alright.”

“We could… we could go now? Whilst it’s still dark? There won’t be anyone else there this way.”

Harry frowns, considering the idea. He draws in a shuddery sigh, before resigning himself to the task, nodding again.

“Okay,” he says, swallowing to wet his dry throat. “In a minute.”

They don’t actually move for another five minutes.

It’s only the beginning of May, so it’s still quite cold, especially at 5am, so they wrap up in jeans and jumpers with coats and gloves and a scarf. They leave Pavo with fresh water and food, and lock the door behind them quietly, not speaking as they make quick work of the steps in their apartment block.

They walk side by side against the light spray of rain, street lamps casting dark orange glows across the wet pavement, breaths visible in the air where they escape through cracked lips. At some point, one of them reach out and lace their hands together, but Harry isn’t sure which of them it is.

The gates to the cemetery are black iron, and Harry’s heart thuds a fast rhythm in his chest when he opens one of them, still holding Draco’s hand, leading him through the aisles of familiar names, past the occasional tomb, until they reach the first relevant one of the day.

The white roses placed against Lucius Malfoy’s headstone are months old, mostly dead and dirty with the weather. Harry vanishes them wandlessly, and Draco lights a cigarette. They pass it between them intermittently, faces reddened against the cold. A single tear spills over and falls down Draco’s cheek and he sniffs, wiping it with the back of his hand before flicking the burned-out cig onto his father’s grave, jaw tight, eyes narrow, expression a convoluted amalgamation of anger, pain, and love.

Eventually Harry, regardless of whether it’s really allowed or not, presses a lingering kiss to Draco’s cheekbone and tugs him away. They visit each grave for no more than a few minutes, not saying anything, just remembering, feeling each emotion as it passes through, different for both of them, but somehow the same.

The sun starts to come up, but they apparate home before it can touch their skin. They both sleep until it goes back down, and when they wake up the next day, for the first time in two years since the war, they don’t want to be with the dead quite as much as they did the day before.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco bonds with Ron and Hermione, and we get a glimpse into the more hands on parts of being an ER Healer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The car crash scene is taken from an episode of The Night Shift, which is a show about army vets that work the night shift at an underfunded trauma hospital in Texas. Go watch it. It's amazing.

Draco is woken the following week by a loud knocking at their front door.

He doesn’t bother getting out of bed at first, instead rolling over and shoving his face in his pillow, ignoring it. But when it gets louder and more insistent, Pavo jumps up on his bed and starts licking at his nose.

He growls sharply and tugs the sheets away from himself, huffing at his dirty laundry pile and stomping out into the living room. He grabs a random pair of Potter’s boxer briefs, not bothering to look at them as he pulls them on, eyes still mostly closed, Pavo following along behind him.

He flings the door open wide, glaring as much as he can when he’s half asleep.

“What the fu-”

He’s knocked back on his feet a few strides as a body slams into his and arms wrap tightly around his neck.

“Nice briefs, Malfoy,” Weasley snorts as he slides in past where Granger is attack hugging him, armed with three heavy looking suitcases, clearly jet lagged and tired, but otherwise amused as he glances down at Draco’s ass.

“Fuck you. You woke me up! I’ve been on the wards all night.”

“I don’t care.”

“Again, Weasley, fuck you.”

“I missed you!”

“Granger, let up, Merlin, you’re freakishly strong.”

She doesn’t pull away for another twenty seconds, instead waiting until he sighs heavily and blinks himself further awake, threading his arms around her slender waist. Admittedly, he has missed her. But the first thing he does when she sets him free, is look down at Potter’s boxers, huffing and blushing slightly at the little giraffes dotted around them.

“Potter didn’t mention we were expecting an invasion.”

“That’s because we only told him last night. You must have got in and gone to bed before we called him.”

Draco just grunts in reply and sulks off to the kitchen, flicking the kettle on and picking at the kebab he’d brought home with him last night. When Granger and Weasley are done dumping their luggage in Potter’s room, they follow him in and sit down. Granger settles in one of the stools, having commandeered Pavo, who fucking loves her. He wordlessly hands them both hot drinks and sighs, wrapping his hands around his coffee and holding it near his face, letting it warm his cheeks and wake him up.

“So, how’s he doing?”

“Hello, Draco, how are you?” he says, rolling his eyes when Granger shoots him a look of reproach. She grins as Pavo nudges at her cheek and snuggles her face, purring.

“We talk to him once a week but he doesn’t tell us much.”

“He’s fine. He has a few other friends, he goes out occasionally, he takes his meds on time, I force him to eat when he forgets. He’s fine.”

“Fine? That doesn’t sound promising.”

“He works too hard.”

“He says the same thing about you.”

Draco breathes out through his nose and pushes down the urge to snap at them. Potter is always whining at him for working all the time; it’s one of the main things they fight about.

“It’s my _job._ ”

“To work yourself to the bone?”

“Granger, I’m a resident on night shifts at one of the busiest wizarding hospitals in the country, and I’m also studying to get a BM; I have to work hard or people could literally die.”

She rolls her eyes at him but senses it’s a touchy subject and doesn’t take it any further, instead pulling her mass of braids into a ponytail at the base of her skull. She’s recently had them done. They’re cornrows on top, and each braid, falling to her hips now, has a different colour woven in; black, grey, white, and purple. The asexual flag colours.

After drinking his tea, Weasley stands and finds all their cooking utensils, smiling at Granger as she hands him the giant bag of food they’ve brought with them, seemingly having pre-empted that neither Draco or Potter would have anything healthy in their cupboards.

Weasley gets to work making a stir fry of some kind, and Draco skulks off to get dressed. He forces himself to leave his textbooks in his room and allow himself at least a few hours without them, simply sitting with Potter’s friends and listening to the sounds of them bickering, letting it fade out everything else.

He reads the Prophet half-heartedly, skimming through a few articles on back street muggings, listing two accounts of sexual assault, one murder. Skeeter quotes from an official that they’re not being treated as related or particularly suspicious. There’s a make-up tip section in the middle, an interview with a psychologist about the rise in PTSD cases since the war, and a Quidditch league table at the back which he commits only briefly to memory.

It takes Granger and Weasley an hour before they finally ask the question he knows is coming.

“So, have you and Harry got your act together yet?”

“What does that even mean?”

“Y’know, done the deed? Talked about how you’re helplessly in love with each other? Sorted your shit out?”

Draco glares at Granger where she’s sipping at a glass of wine and pouring him one, her plump lips curving slightly at the corners. Pavo fixes him with a very similar expression, and he glares at her, betrayed by his own pet.

“Weasley, did she hit her head recently?”

“Not that I know of. She’s right though, the two of you are physically painful to watch.”

Draco chucks a piece of scattered vegetable at the back of his head, and Weasley flips him off, looking vaguely amused as he starts to plate up. The front door opens and closes.

Potter grins widely as he enters the kitchen and claps eyes on his two best friends, making little noises of delight as Granger runs at him and he spins her slowly, burying his face in her neck. Draco ignores the fluttering in his chest, because it’s been a long few months since he’s seen Potter smiling like that. It lights up his entire face, green eyes bright and shiny, dimples and all.

Weasley hugs him tightly and Potter nods at him as he sits down, stealing the cig Draco is smoking, poking his tongue out when Draco shoots him a look of contempt.

“Ginny wanted to come, but the shop is really busy and George is out in California at a promo event.”

“By promo event, do you mean drinking a lot and making the locals fall in love with him?”

“I thought that’s what a promo event was,” Draco snorts, petulantly stealing his cig back and chucking Potter’s meds at him wordlessly, Weasley handing him a glass of water to take them with.

“We’re going out tonight,” Potter insists, still grinning and briefly placing a hand in the small of Weasley’s back. Weasley slides the plate of food in front of him and steps back, crossing his arms over his chest, fixing the both of them with a look that says if they don’t finish every bite, he’s going to force it down their throats.

Draco rolls his eyes again, but gets to eating nonetheless, making a point of sniffing at it first to check if it’s been tampered with.

“I might actually get some fucking peace and quiet for once.”

“No, you’re coming too, non-negotiable.”

* * *

 

“Look, Granger, I can’t have this conversation right now, I’m in the middle of a shift-”

“I know, I’m sorry, but-”

“Draco?”

He winces; knowing that tone as Mediwitch Harris comes rushing in through the office door, windswept and panicky. Draco sighs, nodding.

“Multi trauma on the temple circus roundabout; there’s a learner driver muggle that hit a wizard and his younger brother; suspected DUI. They need you to go with them.”

“But I’m only a resident.”

“The best one we have on our list. And we’re so short staffed tonight; we can’t afford to wait for an attending.”

“What’s the time since the crash?”

“Twenty minutes.”

He immediately springs into a soft sprint beside the Mediwitch, and they burst through the double doors, barely registering the bitter bite of the cold night as he shrugs on his jacket and hands a med kit to Granger. She doesn’t say anything as the throws it around her shoulder. They both move to the apparation decks, only to be halted by one of the Parawitches.

“Hey, what’s she doing? She doesn’t work here-”

“This is Hermione Granger. She’s more intelligent than some of the most skilled healers in this hospital, and we’re short staffed. She’s coming.”

The parawitch glances between them, and Granger grins, face flushed with cold and a sudden rush of adrenaline, shrugging. The parawitch gives in and lets them up.

“This looks like a bad one, D,” Jamie, the youngest parawizard on the callout force, flicks his eyebrows up at him as he steps onto his own deck.

“Let’s hope I don’t fuck it up.”

They reappear fifteen miles out, surrounded by contained chaos. There are a few Aurors already at the scene, closing off pedestrians from the cars in question and liaising with muggle police. There are corporeal Lumos charms set up for maximum visibility, and Granger keeps up well beside him.

“The muggle woman has mild lacerations and the wizard that was driving the Corsa has broken ribs, but we got them covered. It’s his kid brother that’s the problem; we didn’t wanna move him, that’s why we called you.”

They both tug on surgical gloves as The Auror talks loudly to them, his voice clear and precise.

“You have to help him, please!”

Draco draws in a deep breath as they speed walk past an open back ambulance where the wizard driver of the crashed vehicle is being patched up, severely distressed. Draco ignores him.

“All the doors are jammed; you gotta go through the sunroof.”

Draco growls as he braces himself up and lifts himself over, lowering his upper body down through the top of the car.

“Hey, buddy. I’m Draco, this is Hermione,” he gestures to where she’s leaning through the side window, smiling softly at the young boy, eyes wide but focused. “Listen, just hold on, alright, mate? I know you’re scared, but you need to be brave, alright? Can you move your fingers for me?”

Granger takes the kid’s pulse, and Draco watches his small fingers twitching where they lay against the seat beside him.

“Okay, good job, good job. We’re going to take care of you, okay? We’re going to get you out of here, alright? Pull me up!”

One of the road accident workers tug him back up and he grits his teeth as he jumps back down, landing on his feet, Granger meeting him around his side of the car.

“How bad?”

“His skull is separated from his spinal column; I can see it moving separately with each breath.”

“Oh my god, how is he still alive?”

“The skull has been held in place by the neck muscles, but he’s still got motor activity in his extremities, so, spinal cord hasn’t been severed. We need to sedate him, and get him out of here. He’s got a chance.” Draco climbs back over the car, and Granger takes the road guy by the arm, looking at him directly.

“We need to cut him out without snapping his spine in half. Let’s go, people, move it!”

“Hey, kid, we’re going to take care of you,” Draco, hanging upside down through the sunroof again, takes the kid’s head either side, holding it carefully in place. Granger casts charms to keep him still without causing a seizure, bracing the skull and spine.

“If he slips even a millimetre, he’ll be paralysed for the rest of his life.”

“No pressure, guys,” Granger laughs breathlessly before someone holds a mobile phone to her ear.

“Hermione Granger speaking, I’m with Draco Malfoy on location.”

“Our on-call neurosurgeon is in the OR up at Southmead, but he’ll be down as soon as he’s finished.”

“Bloody hell, finally! It’s a wonder no one is on at the board for making their residents do the job of a damn surgeon.”

“Fuck, Granger, the lung collapsed, I need a needle aspiration right now.”

She places the needle between Draco’s lips and takes over his hold on the kid’s head. He takes the cap off, slowly presses it in through the chest cavity, and pulls suction. A second later, the kid relaxes and breathes freely again.

“Merlin, that was close.”

“I don’t want to use too much magic when he’s so fragile.”

Granger slowly moves her hands away again, Draco’s re-replacing them.

“I got him. You’re doing good, mate.”

“We need to get the fuck out of dodge in the next ten minutes, there’s a storm on its way in.”

Draco growls again, but nods, taking in deep, soothing breaths, feeling highly unqualified. He shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing; he’s still only a Healer in residence. But his grades are unparalleled in all of his modules, and the hospital are currently severely understaffed; they can’t afford not to use him like this, and Granger is here, she’s… its good.

Her presence is somewhat grounding with the blood pumping fast through his veins and his heart stuttering in his chest. She watches him carefully, with trust and a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and his hands aren’t shaking.

“Okay, let’s do this.”

“Healer Malfoy, I need to put something over you guys, there’s going to be embers flying all over the place when we cut this thing open.”

“I need to keep him still and keep his lung inflated. Put your jacket over him.”

Draco can feel the blood rushing to his head now, where the effects of being suspended upside down are starting to kick in. But he blinks it away, that heavy fear pushing at his gut; the fear everyone feels when they know a child is in danger and in pain.

Five of the Aurors start up the metal cutting spells, but Draco’s arms and hands remain deadly still, face turning away from the hot embers spraying in. He closes his eyes, breathing out through his nose, remembering that this is his job, that it’s not about him; it’s about the child whose life he is literally holding in his hands.

And within minutes that blur into each other, they’re apparating back in front of the hospital, the kid relatively stable and still very much alive.

* * *

 

He’s exhausted by the time they hook Steven up and get him under a stasis spell.

Draco feels fragile; the way he always does after a long ass shift and cases involving children. So, when Granger pops her head around the door whilst he’s slipping his gloves off and cleaning up, he wants to scream at her to leave him the fuck alone.

“C’mon.”

She fixes him with an expression of so much respect and understanding, that the urge to throw an ECG at her fades straight away, and he finds himself swallowing a lump in his throat.

He just nods, sighing and following Granger out. They get some crappy coffee from the canteen and head up to the roof. The wind has died down slightly now, but it’s still cold and slightly damp. He lights a cigarette and rests forward against the railings, watching the apparation park under the soft glow of the streetlamps.

“You did well today.”

“Granger, when I saw his neck like that-”

He cuts himself off a second, voice croaky as he blows excess air out through his cheeks and shakes his head.

“Yeah,” she agrees, sipping at her coffee.

“Did I ever tell you assholes about this cocky little shit of a deatheater from Wales? Elwyn, he was called. Stupid fucking name.”

“No, I don’t think you have?”

“We were in the middle of a raid on an Order safe camp; some dickhead got his aim wrong and collapsed half the thing on top of us; same injuries as this boy. He was one of the top circle, so it was operate on him, or get it in the neck myself later.”

“Are you serious? Malfoy, you did a spinal decapitation surgery in a collapsed tent?”

He smiles bitterly and nods. The both of them laugh softly as she nudges him, rolling her eyes. His laughter borders dangerously close on tears again though, so he lets it fade, taking another toke on his cig.

“I really thought he was going to make it. It was a difficult letter to write to his parents. It wasn’t protocol; they just burned his body afterwards, none of them gave a shit about it like I thought they would. But I just kept thinking, what if it had been me? My mother would just – I had to do something, to let them know.” There’s still a solemn smile creasing his face, and the tears sting in his eyes regardless of his better judgement. They don’t fall, but he doesn’t bother hiding them now, fed up and so incredibly tired. “Because I was the dickhead with the bad aim.”

He can feel her watching him for a few moments, before she lets out a soft, shaky breath, and rests her head in the crook of his neck, sliding an arm around his and hugging it tightly.

“I – sorry, Granger, I shouldn’t have told you-”

“Why? Draco, I know we’re not the best of friends, and maybe we won’t ever be. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you.”

He doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t shrug her off either, feeling something shift between them; a boundary falling away, a softening around the sharp ends of the double-edged sword still slightly lodged between them.

“What is it that you even do anyway?”

“I work with a Muggle organisation called Doctors Without Borders. I’m stationed in Saudi Arabia at the moment, but when I’m done with this break, they’re sending me out to Syria.”

“Where abouts in Syria?”

“I’ll be getting call outs to the areas hit worst by the bombings. I get to use magic on the downlow to help people quicker.”

He has to admit, that job sounds terrifying. He remembers the war so vividly in his head; the explosions, the noises, the screams, the smell of burning flesh and the rumble of crumbling buildings. Just thinking around the edges of that box in his mind makes him sweaty and nauseous.

He still doesn’t know why he’s doing this job here in England. Really, he’s seen enough open wounds and grotesquely bent out bones to last him a lifetime. He just doesn’t know how to quit it. Besides, whatever the stress and pain of being in those situations again, it’s almost always worth it at the end of the day; particularly when he saves nine-year-old boys from being vegetables for the rest of their lives.

“And Weasley? What does he do, other than stand around looking gormless?”

She rolls her eyes and knocks their knees together.

“He’s training to be a psychologist actually, as part of the new psychiatric unit at St Mungos.”

“How cute,” Draco drawls, sighing again and flicking his cigarette sideways, detangling himself from Granger.

Then there’s another Mediwitch bursting through the doors behind them again, beckoning him back to the ER.

“John Dawlish,” she says breathlessly, “someone tried to kill him.”

He sighs heavily and they both run back in.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Queue: Ginny & Pansy, my queens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really though this chapter is unashamedly gay and almost purely gratuitous because I'm a bit in love with the idea of Ginny in a suit; also I'm all about wlw couples being safe and happy in public. In my head, I saw her like Halsey (and the Weasley children are biracial just sayin).

Ginny fixes her hair in the mirror and gives herself the once over, smirking at the way the black tailoured suit fits her body perfectly, accentuates her curves, and dips below her cleavage.

She’s cut her hair short in preparation for the upcoming Quidditch season, and she adores it; it makes her feel free and more like herself than ever. Her lips are painted in a dark red and she’s well aware that she looks beautiful.

She’s been nervous about this for weeks, freaking out about the fact that she’s going to be a poor, outspoken Weasley girl on the arm of a well to do, disgustingly rich Slytherin in public for the first time since the war.

She knows there are going to be cameras and microphones in her face for the following two hours, that there are going to be loud, obnoxious questions and backhanded compliments that leave a sting across her contoured cheekbones, and that she won’t be able to snap out a biting, clever reply unless she wants the press following her around and demonising her for months to come.

It isn’t that she’s not excited about the night ahead of her; she’s very much looking forward to being wined and dined, and to the fact that of all the distractions at the charity benefit, she’ll have the attention of the person everyone wants a piece of.

But the twist of anxiety in her gut that has her peeing every two minutes is not the easiest thing to hide, especially when she already feels slightly like a deer caught in the headlights. She has no idea how to conduct herself according to the mannered aristocracy of a pureblood culture she’s entitled to, but has never truly been part of.

It’s too late to back out however, when there’s a light knock at her door and her thoughts are once again scattered to the wind. She draws in a deep, shaky breath and runs her sweaty palms over the toned length of her stomach, eyes catching on the immaculate red nail varnish shining on her fingernails.

She swallows and takes the black satin carry purse from her bedside table, stepping into the Louis Vuittons she’s borrowed from Lavender, nodding once more at her reflection before she pastes her warrior smile across her mouth and leaves.

When she opens the door, she has to take a moment to thank Merlin.

Parkinson is all bronze skin and dark brown eyes, brunette hair wisping around her shoulders, full lips and ample curves; a startling contrast to Ginny’s less slender frame and wiry Quidditch arms.

She’s framed in a satin silver number with a bateau neckline that accentuates defined collarbones and falls in a princess cut, in at the waist and floaty around long legs.  She’s breathtaking.

“Put your tongue away, Weasley, before I make use of it.”

“I’m less inclined to bother now.”

Parkinson snorts and grins, stepping up to lean into Ginny’s personal space, placing a maddeningly feather light kiss to her lips before pulling away. A soft hand slips into her own and she pulls her gently forward, guiding her down to the pavement as a man in velvet blue dress robes holds a shiny black car door open for them.

Her nerves only get worse as they set off on the main road and her breath catches in her throat. She’s desperately grateful that Parkinson’s fingers remain threaded between her own, and that she squeezes gently, the pressure there grounding and familiar.

“May I say, Weasley, you look positively delicious tonight. I should have called ahead and told you to come in your pyjamas; I don’t think I’ll be able to concentrate-”

“Behave,” Ginny interrupts her, rolling her eyes and smiling softly nonetheless. Parkinson winks at her, a silent ‘ _never_ ’ as she lifts their hands to her mouth and presses another gentle kiss to the upside of Ginny’s palm.

She only has time for a small moment of centering before the doors open. Parkinson helps her out of the car and in the same movement, the soles of their incredulously high heels hit the red carpet.

She’s both thankful and frustrated by the constant warmth at her side; by the way Pansy is decidedly always plush against her, the slender arm snug around her waist and the attentive whispers of encouragement close to her ear. It’s all these things that keep her lucid enough to remember to smile at the camera and relax into the contact, smirking once more as Pansy presses a proud kiss to the arch of her cheekbone, and nuzzles at her temple.

She’d been correct in her assumptions about the loud questions. They explode and hit them the second they’re out in the London evening air again. Instead of answering them directly, Ginny simply continues to smile for the lenses, confident in her appearance and personality. If they don’t like it, they can shove it up their asses.

All she really thinks about, besides how much she wants to take the dress off of the beautiful woman beside her, is the damage control she’s going to have to do the following morning when her family see the papers.

Maybe she can convince Pansy to take them to Bristol for a few days, stay with Harry and Draco whilst the storm blows over and the campus security shields them from the prying eyes of the paparazzi.

“Miss Weasley, are you out as a lesbian now?”

“Miss Weasley, does Harry Potter know about your relationship with Miss Parkinson?”

“Miss Weasley, who are you wearing tonight?”

“Miss Weasley, what do you think about the recent attacks on-”

“Miss Weasley, are you on the list to become one of Britain’s most-”

Her heart beat races in her chest and she can hear it thudding in her ears, her head light and foggy.

“Miss Weasley, is it true you’re in talks with the Chudleigh Cannons to take over Amerio Escanade’s position as Seeker in the fall?”

“I signed on yesterday morning, and training starts next month; buy a season ticket whilst they’re still on half price.”

This is the first inquiry she feels she can respond to, and it tugs her back down to earth like a rush of warm air washing over her, and suddenly she’s herself again, present in the moment and ignited by the mention of Quidditch. Pansy lets out a soft chuckle and rolls her eyes, dropping her forehead to her shoulder. They step forward, engaging the wizarding television crews lined up and kept back by waist high metal barriers.

They get lost in a string of ten to twenty second interviews then, Pansy taking most of them out of habit and consideration, knowing that Ginny is new to this and will settle in eventually.

Ginny lets herself wonder to the individual reactions of her family.

Her mother will be… shocked. Not unhappy, of course; the moment she’s sure that Ginny is smiling and safe, nothing else will matter very much. Her father will, perhaps, be apprehensive to begin with. It will take Parkinson a little while to win them both over; she represents a lot of pain and struggle for their family over the years, and getting past that will take time.

Percy is still far too apologetic to bother being put out by it, and she knows he’ll observe quietly, making sure that she’s alright. He will, of course, be inwardly delighted. Whilst humbled by his epiphany after the war, she’s not stupid enough to think his ambitious streak has completely dissipated; he’ll adore the fact that Ginny is aligning herself with a powerful (or previously so) pureblood family, even if that hadn’t even been a conscious factor when she’d accidentally tripped head over heels in love with Slytherin’s resident princess.

Ron might… he’ll be a bit more difficult to convince. There may be some shouting, a little bit of sulking, some very awkward apologies, and a good amount of foot in mouth conversations about it all. It isn’t that he despises the Slytherins as such, and he’s definitely warmed to them more in their final year of Hogwarts, what with how unavoidably besotted Harry is with Malfoy. It’s just that he’s still wary of them.

Bill won’t be an issue, as with Charlie; they’ll probably give her a good pat on the back and tease her about batting for both teams now.

George – he… she’s unsure. He’s still finding it difficult to pay attention to anything outside of a bottle of firewhiskey at the moment. He still goes into work most days, keeps up with the accounts, makes it home once every couple of months to keep up appearances. But she knows George better than she knows anyone else on the planet, and it’s obvious to her that he’s still very deeply broken and resentful. He loves her though, she knows, and he still looks at her like she’s the best thing since sliced bread, so he’ll hug her, congratulate her on bagging aristocracy’s ‘most bangable bachelorette’, and send her on her way.

She’s brought back into focus when they near the end of the carpet, and this time, she takes Pansy’s hand and leads her up the stairs to the grand building, laughing when she’s tugged gently against her companion, elated and already quite tired, but otherwise content.

“You’re doing wonderfully, Weasley. Now, let’s get a drink and some food down you, donate a few hundred thousand galleons to this generous cause, and leave before you pass out.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whiny hungover young adults, an English Literature lecture, a cheeky twelve year old on the paediatrics ward, and a birthday party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy to be writing this fic again; I'd forgotten how much joy it brings me. And we're just now stepping into the brand new content territory, considering everything up to this point was already written for 'Rear View'. 
> 
> Please comment and let me know what you think; feedback really helps me to improve and do better for you guys. 
> 
> Thanks.   
> Dee xx

Draco wakes to a body tumbling into him and slumping across his.

He doesn’t react badly, registering the scent of strawberry shampoo in the back of his mind, and he lets out a small, quiet groan, bringing his right arm up to cover his eyes as someone opens the curtains a little.

“Granger,” he growls through a groggy throat, “get the fuck off me.”

“No.” She murmurs against his neck, “comfy.”

“Well I’m not. Jesus, do you weigh a tonne?”

“You wouldn’t believe it, would you?” Weasley’s voice comes from beside them where he’s placing two cups of tea and four ibuprofen on the table.

“I want cola,” Granger whines and Draco gives up on trying to get her to move off him, instead huffing and sinking further into the sofa, wrapping his arms around her and reluctantly giving in to her insistent snuggling.

“No,” he says, voice croaky, mouth dry and head throbbing, “the carbon dioxide gets the alcohol to your brain faster and you’ll sugar crash later; Weasley, send Potter to the shop for some isotonic sports drinks; honey, double cream, milk, and bananas.”

“He’s not much better than you two lightweights, and I’m not going to get your weird sex food.”

“Fuck you.” Draco grumbles. “The bananas, honey, cream and milk are for a hangover cure. It lines the stomach, rehydrates, and increases blood sugar without sending you into overdrive.”

“Awh look, Doctoring even when he’s hungover.”

Draco kicks out at him when he walks past just as Potter stumbles into the room looking wretched, yet still somehow adorable. It does not improve Draco’s mood.

“Ugggggh,” Potter complains, “my head feels like a cement mixer.”

“Go to the shop and get us some stuff then.”

“I threw up two minutes ago, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well then suffer like the rest of us,” Draco snaps, abandoning dignity and burying his face in Granger’s braids, the strawberry scent soothing the ache of his head somehow. Potter just collapses in the armchair opposite them and curls in on himself.

“Rooooon,” he bats his eyelids as much as he can without giving himself an aneurism, “go to the shops? I want a fry up.”

“You can shove your puppy eyes up your ass.”

“But I’m letting you stay here,” Harry says. “The least you could do is help us with our hangovers.”

“You got yourself into this mess; why should I have to clean up after you?”

“Maybe you should have asked yourself that when your eleven year old self thought it’d be a good idea to befriend him,” Draco says.

“Must I remind you that Harry rejecting your offer of friendship when you were eleven caused seven years of-”

“Okay,” Potter interrupts, batting his hands around his head in distress, “shhhh.”

“Ron,” Granger says, sliding in at Draco’s side instead, trapping herself between the back of the sofa and his body, “go to the shop and get what Draco says.”

Weasley attempts to look as though he’s impervious to Granger’s authoritative tone, even when its slightly muted by fatigue. He stands with his arms crossed over his chest for only a few seconds, however, before he looks like he’s seriously resisting the urge to stamp his foot, and gives in.

“Fine,” he growls, shrugging into a leather jacket that Draco begrudgingly has to admit, looks frustratingly fantastic on him, and grabbing Potter’s keys from the coffee table. “Text me the list of shit you want and try not to die whilst I’m gone.”

* * *

 

“So, from the continued reference to an ‘other’ nature, and a repressed wildness, critics have before argued that Pip is quite possibly written to be a latent homosexual.”

Harry breathes in sharply through his teeth and sits back against his chair. Around him, a small smattering of equally tense breaths whisper across the lecture hall.

Beside him, Angel crosses his arms over his torso and flicks his eyebrows upward, “any academic paper that contains the words ‘latent homosexual’, is automatically graded null and void.”

Harry snorts, adjusting himself further in his seat and trying to combat the slow rising irritation clawing up through his gut.

“Just as a quick question though,” Harry is unable to stop himself from speaking up, “surely claiming that being ‘other’ and having a ‘wildness’, is referencing same gender attraction is like, some of the most passive aggressive homophobic bullshit a person can include in an academic document that’s supposed to inform and broaden a viewpoint, not propose a whole new subjective narrative?”

The pause of their lecturer and the low echo of laughter and spluttered coughs along the pews makes Harry smile to himself slightly, shrugging and wetting his lips.

“Just saying.”

“Mr Potter,” the lecturer recovers, leaning back against his desk and tucking his hands in the pockets of his slacks, “I don’t believe I have ever agreed more with a student in my academic career, and that was actually going to be my next point. Write this down. The state of the way some universities currently teach literature is, quite frankly, a mess; outdated, prejudiced, and far too inaccessibly wordy in twenty seventeen…”

And Harry continues smiling softly, his classmates beginning to scribble in shorthand whilst Paul talks, walking up and down the stairs between the rows as he goes. The rest of the lesson passes in much the same way, Paul not being able to resist letting his students interrupt him despite that being the purpose of the seminar scheduled for _after_ the lecture.

* * *

 

Draco _hates_ working paediatrics.

It’s not what he’s even remotely qualified for, it’s depressing as hell, and he prefers the adrenaline of the ER.

He’d been assigned to the ICU for the first half of the shift, and when he enters the private wards at the end of the second half, with his patient lists on a floating clipboard and a quick quotes quill beside him, he’s exhausted, frustrated, and pissed off with himself for picking one of the most understaffed wizarding hospitals in the country to do his residency with.

The malpractice involved is incredulous, and the fact that at any one time he can be called back and forth between oncology, surgery, or even radiology, is both alarming and probably illegal.

Also, it means that on top of working night shifts, completing his coursework, and going to lectures and seminars, he has to make time for extra study so he doesn’t fuck up when they pass him around different departments. Also, he’s barely even a certified Healer, let alone one who can diagnose syphilis, bone cancer, a ruptured spleen, and multiple sclerosis on several different people in the same damn evening.

Still, he thinks, as he approaches the bed at the end of the ward and forces himself to smile at the skeletal little twelve-year-old face grinning up at him, when he finally does collapse at the end of the shift, he always goes to sleep with the knowledge that he’s saved someone else. One more life to make up for the countless others he’s taken.

He can do this.

“Oliver,” he nods, checking over the ECG spell and frowning slightly at the irregularities, “are you reading comic books again?”

“Do I get a lolly if I say no?”

“Oliver; you know they mess with your heart rate.”

“I know.” Oliver sighs, and Draco despises that even that is edged with a deep, chesty rattle, “it’s just… it’s so _boring_ in here.”

“Will Captain America approve if it kills you?”

“Hell yeah.” Oliver snorts and Draco can’t keep the genuine smile from his lips now, rolling his eyes, “that’s a badass way to go.”

“How about you don’t go anywhere and you hold off on the comic books until your transplant comes in, okay?”

Oliver looks guilty and hesitant for a moment, but Draco crosses his arms over his chest and stares him down and eventually he nods once, looking devastated. It almost kills Draco, but letting him read those things is so dangerous, it’s a small sacrifice in the bigger picture.

“Why so glum, Olly?”

“Harry!”

“Fuck sake, Potter.” Draco growls, “I was just getting him to agree to stop reading comics to regulate his heart beat, and you come in and fuck it up!”

“Language,” Olly and Potter say in sync, and Draco grits his teeth, forcing himself to ignore them both and their evil scheming ways whilst he checks over the rest of the vitals and makes some notes.

“How’s it going then, Olly?”

“Alright,” Oliver shrugs meekly, “bit boring to be honest. Hospitals are a drag.”

“Oh I know.” Potter replies, smirking slightly as Draco sideyes him, “I used to be in hospital all the time.”

“Where you ill too?”

“Not really,” Potter says, glancing mischievously at Draco, “Healer Malfoy here just liked to break my bones.”

“Potter,” Draco breathes in through his nose to keep his cool, “kindly stop telling my patients lies.”

“I would never lie!” Potter insists, mocking offence, “look.”

He shows Oliver the scars on his hands and Draco really does keep his eyes averted this time, not really wanting the reminder of his role in inflicting them.

“Woah! Cool!”

“Right?” Potter says. “I got them whilst I was fighting a mean old teacher I used to have at Hogwarts.”

“Did you win?”

“Naturally,” Potter poses and pretends to flick invisible hair from his shoulders, and Oliver giggles. All at once, Draco is unable to resent Potter just turning up at his place of work in the middle of the night anymore. It’s the first-time Oliver has laughed like that in weeks, and whilst it causes him to have a coughing fit that Draco has to talk him down from, it’s very almost worth it.

“Oliver, stay away from the comics for the next week, and I’ll get onto the board about moving you up the transplant list. Potter,” Draco gestures for him to follow as he moves to leave Oliver’s bedside. Potter bumps his fist against Oliver’s and Draco rolls his eyes as they exit the ward, the doors swinging shut behind them.

“You’re coming for a pint with me,” Potter tells him.

“I’m exhausted,” Draco sighs, passing his notes over the reception desk to Victoria, who offers him a brief, sympathetic smile.

“Cool. You’re still coming for a pint.”

“Potter, please just, let me take a breath. I want my bed.”

“I want your bed too, doesn’t seem to mean shit these days,” Potter mutters and Draco pretends he doesn’t hear him, rubbing at his temples and shrugging out of his white Healer’s overcoat, heading towards the lockers.

“Look, you’ve had a long day, I promise you can go home and sleep straight after. Just one pint. You need to relax, you wind yourself up way too tight.”

“Pot kettle.”

“Draco.”

“Alright,” Draco growls, huffing as he shoves his Healers things into his locker and shrugs into his leather jacket, checking his pockets for his keys, phone, wallet, and baccy, “one pint, and you’re buying.”

“Naturally,” Potter drawls, although he perks up at Draco’s agreement, following him back through the ER and outside into the nippy night air.

“Where to?”

“The Colston,” Potter grins, grabbing at Draco’s shoulders from behind, “you won’t regret it.”

“We’ll see about that,” Draco remarks as he gets to work rolling them both a cigarette. They turn down Upper Mauldlin Street, walking slowly.

It’s an alright night, really, warmish with the birth of June… or is it July? Jesus, Draco doesn’t even know. He writes the date down on his notes every day, but it never retains its place in his head, more an automatic action by now; like putting on shoes before leaving the house or putting water in a cup before milk.

Potter rambles on about his day beside him, something about Dickens and homophobic rhetoric. But Draco is too wired to pay close attention, instead focusing on letting the tension in his shoulders dissipate, Potter’s steady voice running a stream of calm through his veins and gradually getting him out of work mode.

He finds himself looking forward to a nice cold pint and the low chatter of a pub.

In the five minutes it takes them to round on St Michaels Hill and end up outside the small blue banners of The Colston Arms, he feels far more like himself again.

There’s a couple sat on the dark blue wooden bench outside the doorway, smoking and nursing large pints of Carlsberg, chatting away.

“Nah, mate, you’ve got it wrong a’ight, Luce would never cheat on Baz; they’re endgame, innit?”

“Buuuulshit,” the second guy says, “she’s bored as fuck living with him. Who wouldn’t be? Guy folds his socks.”

Draco spares them a brief glance before Potter is dragging him through the doors.

“Happy Birthday!”

Draco almost stumbles backward as the whole pub erupts with un-synced shouts obviously directed at him. He opens his mouth to say something, but finds himself speechless and shocked. Its… its not his birthday. Is it? He thinks very hard about the date he’d scribbled on patient notes all day, trying to think about the number he’d written.

The fifth. Of July.

Holy shit, he’d forgotten his own birthday.

But Potter hadn’t. Potter had remembered. And gathered all of his friends at the local pub.

He forces himself back to reality when his mother approaches, grinning ear to ear and looking pleasantly amused by his reaction, wrapping her arms around him.

“Try to smile,” she says against his neck, his arms going around her in turn.

It isn’t hard, he’s surprised to realise, his lips curling slowly through the initial winding into a soft smirk, trying not to blink on embarrassingly watery eyes.

She takes his hand and leads him to the bar where Zabini, Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle, Knott, and Flint are all sat in muggle attire, looking smart casual in their clearly expensive get ups, all with mirroring smirks on their faces.

“Lads,” Draco manages as Potter orders him a pint and Zabini pushes up on his stool a little to press a rough kiss to his cheek.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” Granger says as she comes back from the loo, her hand resting on his waist where she attaches herself to the side of his body, rolling her eyes at him.

“You know what he’s like,” Weasley says where he’s stood on Potter’s right, “forget his own head if it wasn’t screwed on properly.”

“I didn’t forget!” Draco insists, frowning as his mother joins Parkinson at a bar seat, having already drank half a glass of pino, “I just… I’ve been busy. Saving lives does that to you.”

“Alright, House,” Potter says, sliding his drink towards him, “get that down you.”

Draco draws in a discreet breath, watching Potter as he engages in a side-line conversation with Weasley. He’s dressed in his usual jeans and converses, one of Draco’s t-shirts, and his black denim jacket. Draco wants to make a snarky comment about him stealing his clothes, but he can’t bring himself to say anything; Potter looks… nervous. A little hesitant in his movements, like he’s still not sure how this will be received. But something in Draco’s chest feels warm and bright. It makes him a bit dizzy, even though he hasn’t even touched his drink yet.

He grabs at it and gulps for something to do.

The rest of the pub are clearly aware of the occasion, but they’re mostly muggles and don’t know him apart from in passing, on the odd night where he and Potter come for a pint before going home with a kebab to watch something inane and ridiculous on Muggle television.

After a few minutes, he settles into the abrupt, impromptu birthday gathering and takes his own seat at the bar, talking to his friends in sporadic bursts of interaction, some of them joining in at times, splitting into their own chatter at others. He’s talked to everyone within the first hour, and after that he really relaxes, and finds it isn’t hard at all.

The easy banter flowing with the steady stream of alcohol being bought for him on tap, the intermittent fag breaks to go and stand in the street outside, continuing to talk about this and that as cars go up and down, and other pub goers wish him a happy birthday and end up telling strangers weird snippets of life stories.

This is generally how a pub night goes, to be honest. They move to play an overly competitive game of pool in the small cockpit near the toilets. A hen night come in, do three rounds of shots, take over the jukebox, flash thongs whilst they dance to Maneater by Nelly Furtado, and then leave again. The odd person gets up the Dutch courage to join in on karaoke; a short middle aged blonde woman performs Gypsies Tramps and Thieves, two uni students really get into Thinking Out Loud, a group of drunken chavs do an alarmingly good rendition of History by One Direction, and when the karaoke ends, they put on the Muggle top 40 uk.

Two regular drunks who just got their monthly benefits through have a punch up, a northern couple have a fight and the woman smashes a glass over her friend’s head. Draco sits with her and has a cigarette whilst she waits for a taxi, and because she’s too drunk to notice much of anything, he wandlessly fixes the cut on her head and siphons off most of the blood, feeling uncharacteristically… nice.

Significantly buzzed and indulged on satisfactory company, when he watches his mother and his friends slowly dissipate outside around midnight, there’s a lazy smile on his face, and the soft glow of the streetlamp on the curb frames Potter’s face in a way that makes Draco want to cry with pleasant frustration.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Potter asks him as they wait for their own taxi. It’s not a good idea for them to apparate whilst they’re tipsy.

“Potter,” Draco rolls his eyes, toking on his cig and tucking his other hand in the pocket of his jeans, “don’t be dense.”

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Potter grins, nudging him softly and sucking on his own cig. He watches the smoke furl and billow from Potter’s lips, and feels too drunk to bite down on the small smile playing on his own, shamelessly watching him. Potter blinks his way after a few seconds, and catches his eye, raising one eyebrow but smiling back.

“What’s that look for?”

“Fuck you,” Draco tuts, scuffing his feet across the floor and bowing his head, a wayward strand of hair falling over his face.

“No, c’mon,” Potter says delicately, and Draco can see his old converses step into his personal space. “Hey, what is it?”

“Potter,” Draco sighs, swallowing before he looks up again, knowing in his rational mind that he should just keep his mouth shut right now and not say anything else. Just be quiet, get in the taxi, go home, and go to sleep.

“Hmm?”

“Thank you,” he says sincerely, his voice gentle and a little croaky with exhaustion and elation, feeling something stirring in his stomach that isn’t because of the alcohol. His heart beat picks up as he forces himself to meet Potter’s gaze, feeling like the world around them got very small all of a sudden.

“It was my pleasure,” Potter replies, dropping their foreheads together. Draco wants nothing more in that moment than to just say fuck it all and capture that beautiful bottom lip between his own, to taste and feel, to take what he wishes so badly he could have. Almost needs, at this point.

But even with the lingering buzz of alcohol on his inhibitions, he forces himself to ignore the urge, drawing in a deep breath and closing his eyes. Instead, his hand comes up behind Potter’s neck, gripping tightly as he lifts his head and presses a rough, inveterate kiss between his eyebrows. He presses their forehead together again for another couple of seconds before taking a small step back. Potter looks more intoxicated than before, more ruffled somehow, cheekbones coloured with more of a blush. He’s so beautiful, it physically aches.

But a few minutes later the taxi arrives and whatever bubble had captured them bursts, dropping them back into reality.

He sleeps until eleven am the next day, and when he wakes up, he’s at peace.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is starting to get a bit too much for Harry. And he gets a new tattoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really loved writing this chapter. 
> 
> Let me know what you think.   
> Dee xx

Harry sighs as he settles in at the canteen and watches Draco lean over one of his friends to get to the potatoes. The girl he’s with is beautiful. She’s tall and fat and full of vibrancy, even at first glance.

Afro curls puff up around her head and fall at stunning length near her hips. She has green eyes that shine even under the dodgy lighting and she’s wearing a baggy grey t-shirt with the word ‘NOPE’ printed on it, with black skinny jeans rolled at the ankles and bright pink vans. She grabs at his elbow and steers him away from the cola dispenser, shoving a bottle of water in his hands.

He watches Draco roll his eyes but accept it anyway, a soft, fond look taking over his face. They sit together at the table and Harry finally forces himself to pay attention to his food when her hand rests on Draco’s thigh.

He knows the girl; her name is Faiza and she’s a third-year med student, specialising in potions and the most likely on her course to achieve masters level before she’s even finished her BM.

He also knows she’s famous for her dry sense of humour and nurturing personality.

He tries very hard to hate her, but just looking at her makes him like her, knowing that she’ll be good for Draco, who lacks the ability to look after himself on the best of days. Harry grits his teeth and smiles when Cassie and Jake sit on either side of him.

“I hope you’ve got your coursework done; deadline’s tonight,” Cass says, pressing a kiss to his cheek in greeting. Harry huffs, and shoves a large spoonful of scrambled egg in his mouth. Of course he has it done, he’s been stressing about it all week, spending his every free second writing.

“I think that’s a yes,” Jake snorts, “Haz, chew, bloody chew dammit.”

On principle, Harry narrows his eyes at Jake and swallows his mouthful whole, resisting the urge to choke. He discreetly takes a gulp of his pumpkin juice and Cass rolls her eyes at him, taking her notebook and pen out of her bag and flipping to her notes on romanticism and landscape where she has pages on religion versus science and Hardy’s relationship with both.

“You’re looking particularly broody today, H.” Jake steals a piece of fried bread from Harry’s plate and sits back in his chair, flicking his legs up on the table and ignoring the scowl of a girl sitting a few meters away from him, “who pissed on your chips?”

“I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that word, but I don’t think it means what you think it means,” Cassie remarks, and Harry takes his meds as she looks across the hall at Draco where he’s in deep conversation with Faiza. “Ah, that’s why.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Harry replies deadpan, running one hand through his mess of floppy curls and checking his diary for what he’s supposed to do today.

“You have a tattoo appointment at twelve,” Cass tells him without looking, popping a strawberry in her mouth. “Who’s going with you?”

“I’m a big boy,” he says. “I’m perfectly capable of getting tatted on my own.”

“What are you getting?” Jake asks, genuinely interested. Harry sighs and takes a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of his hoodie, handing it to him. Jake’s eyebrows hit the top of his head when he sees it, and he seems to struggle for what to say for a few seconds.

“What?”

“Is this what I’m assuming it is?”

“Assumptions are dangerous,” Harry says. Jake narrows his eyes this time, and Harry shrugs, taking the piece of paper back.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re getting a picture of a snake curled in the shape of a D tattooed into your skin and you’re telling me it isn’t a big deal?”

“I have loads of tattoos that represent my friends,” Harry says, “I have the smiley face you drew on my wrist tatted.”

Jake smiles softly at him this time, and Harry is uncomfortable with the hint of pity and mild frustration that accompanies it. He swallows tightly and determinedly forces himself not to look over at Draco again.

“Does he know you’re getting this?”

“I mentioned it in passing but he was exhausted. He’s always exhausted.”

“Maybe because half of his energy goes into pining after you,” Cassie says, “the two of you are hopeless. How do you even stand to live together? Why do you keep torturing yourself with it?”

“Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Haz, mate, for goodness sake, you’re being ridiculous. You’re both mentally ill, it’s so bad for you to keep skirting around what is obviously inevitable.”

Harry grits his teeth and doesn’t make eye contact with either of them, trying to stamp down on the intense anxiety coiling in his gut.

“What are you just going to spend the rest of your life hopelessly, painfully in love with Draco Malfoy and never do anything about it.”

“I’m – I’m not – jesus, will you just leave it?”

“We always leave it,” Jake insists, “because we thought you’d have been smart enough to tell him by now.”

“I can’t!” he says a little too loudly, so a few people glance up at him, and Draco’s head lifts from a few tables over, fixing him with a concerned look. Harry draws in a sharp breath through his nose and nods once, winking at him. Draco frowns a little bit but lets it go.

“I can’t,” he repeats, quieter, “there’s – there’s just too much I’d be risking. Do you know how long it’s taken to get to the point where we can even be in the same room without killing each other?”

“Even though that would never happen, because you’ve never been able to stop saving each other’s lives even when you hated each other.”

“God forbid I don’t want someone I’ve grown up with to die,” Harry grumbles, dropping his head to the table and wrapping his arms around it.

“You’re miserable.” Cass places her head on the table beside him and turning it sideways. She reaches out and nudges his arm out of the way so she can see his face. “You deserve to be happy.”

“It’s kind of refreshing actually,” he says blandly, blinking away the wetness in his tired eyes, “having normal problems.”

She laughs softly, and Jake joins in on their weird little face to table conversation, leaning his body against him.

“C’mon, mate,” he says, “just help yourself. That’s all we’re asking; help yourself.”

Harry closes his eyes as Jake runs his fingers through Harry’s hair. He swallows again on the lump in his throat and lets out a long, rattily breath, feeling his meds kicking in and numbing out some of the anxiety tightening in his muscles.

“Just let me get through today,” he says. “I’ll – I’ll speak to him tomorrow or something.”

“Promise?” Cass says, brushing a curl from his forehead and pressing a kiss to it.

“Promise,” he mumbles.

They stay like that for a little longer, paying no heed to how strange it probably looks to the rest of the students eating breakfast. When he feels like he can face daylight again, Harry lifts his head and lets Cass and Jake take both of his hands and lead him from the hall.

* * *

 

Cass comes to get his tattoo with him. Weirdly, so does Draco.

Harry goes back to the apartment first, to change out of his jeans to trackies and Vans, and Draco is there lounging around doing nothing because it’s the one day off he gets a week. He sees that Harry is nervous, immediately insisting in his sharp, snappy way, that he’s tagging along and there’s nothing he can do about it. Harry begrudgingly lets him follow them.

So that’s how he ends up getting inked whilst Draco sits in the uncomfortable spare chair playing on his phone whilst Harry closes his eyes and tries not to focus on the pain, and more on the buzzing of the machine and the low hum of the others around the shop.

“It’s so pretty,” Cass says quietly where she stands behind Harry, arms crossed and watching intently.

“That’s the point,” Harry snorts.

“Still,” she says, “it’s like… beautiful. Did you draw it?”

“Yeah,” he replies breathlessly as the artist gets closer to the soft skin at the top of the inside of his forearm. He’s used to the eyewatering stinging now; he’s got loads of tats. Little doodles around his biceps and wrists. Up his spine, is a stunning Celtic tree that Aliya, his go to tattooist, had spent hours designing for him. It’s still only half finished, and he has an appointment in a couple of weeks to get the lines finished and the colouring done.

Over his ribs, he has an intricate patterning of owls, watercolour spells, and the constellations of his friend’s birthdays that map out around his back slightly, weaving in and around his shoulder blades up to the blank geometric rose on his neck, down to his parent’s epitaph that lines the bottom of his collar bones in cursive, reading ‘ _novissima autem inimica destruetur mors_ ’.

Like he’d reminded Jake earlier, he has his smiley face over the veins of his wrist, Hermione’s sketch of an otter on his hip. ‘Fuck you’ in Ron’s handwriting on his right arm near his elbow. Dean had drawn a stunning bunch of aconite for him, which is situated on the back of his neck near the rose. Seamus and Neville had collaborated to pen a mini moving quidditch game that’s spelled to always play on the top of his thigh. He has the word strength in capital letters, actually tatted in person by Parvati when he’d first moved to Bristol, and Padma had scribbled out ‘verily, with the hardship, there is relief’, a quote from the Quran in Bengali which the three of them have always mostly communicated in. Lavender had drawn a single stem of… well, Lavender, which curves around the bone of his ankle.

But he doesn’t have anything for Draco yet.

He hears the shutter of a camera, and opens one eye, frowning at Draco where he’s stood up now, leaning in to take a look. Harry holds his breath, frightened that he doesn’t remember being told about the design, and scared that he’ll react badly.

He watches unreadable emotions flicker over Draco’s expression, before something settles and he lets out a long sigh. He draws the chair up closer and gestures for Aliya to hand him the gun.

“Are – um, are you sure?”

“Potter,” Draco rolls his eyes, a soft smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth, “I don’t do things I’m not sure about anymore.”

“I did tell you I was getting it.”

“I don’t remember, but I’m sure you did,” Draco says. “Drink.”

Cass hands him a bottle of coke and he takes a long swig with his free arm.

This feels… it feels weirdly significant. Like… intimate. In a way they haven’t been before. Living together, they don’t have a lot of boundaries. They share clothes, clean each other’s dirty laundry, walk around half naked. They’re used to each other. They _know_ each other.

But something about having Draco ink his skin forever, feels extremely big; he’ll have this on his skin even when its rotting away in the earth. And he’s aware he’s had a lot of people he loves tat him before, but it’s different with Draco. It’s _always_ different with Draco.

His heart clenches and he has to focus on breathing.

“Potter, jesus, if you don’t want me to fuck this up you’re going to have to relax.”

He flips him the bird, and focuses on grounding himself, closing his eyes again and trying to block out the screaming in his head, the overwhelming swelling sensation in his chest, the warmth flooding his veins and making his eyes water.

It would have only taken him another twenty minutes, but he insists on doing the colouring too.

When they leave the shop, the sky is darkening a little and there’s a light spray of cool rain in the air. Harry feels liminal, slightly detached from reality, and incredulously tired. Cassie starts to fuss a little, but Draco interrupts her.

“I’ll take him home and he can sleep it off.”

“He’s dead on his feet.”

“I’ll apparate him, he’ll be fine. He’s a bloody drama queen.”

Harry finds the motivation to elbow him in the ribs, but when Cassie leaves, Draco stands in front of him, slapping is cheek a little, hands settling either side of his neck.

“What the fuck is wrong with you today? You’re a mess.”

“I don’t – honestly I’m just having a bad mental health day,” Harry manages, not having the strength to lie properly.

“Did you take your meds?”

“You know as well as I do that sometimes they just don’t make much of a difference.”

“Alright,” Draco huffs, tugging his head forward to bury Harry’s face in his neck, one hand cradling the back of it, the other firmly in the small of his back. He feels Draco breathe in deep once and turn on the spot, before they disappear.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A charity ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun with this tbh, and if anyone wants to draw some snapshots from this I'd love them forever.
> 
> Let me know what you think, and as always, thank you.   
> Dee xx

Draco raises his eyebrows at himself in the full body mirror, straightening his tie where its slightly skewif.

He looks damn good, and he bloody knows it.

His mother had called out of the blue last Saturday and insisted that he and Potter attend her charity ball. They’ve both been politely declining for the past year and a half, and had decided that actually, they need to get over whatever is making them say no, and just do it.

It’ll be their first official public appearance as friends since the war ended, and… well, ever really.

So naturally, Draco is shitting himself.

But he’d gone straight to Cribbs Causeway and spent three hours with a tailor and a personal shopper looking at colours and fabrics and getting fitted. In the end, he’d finally decided on this.

He’s wearing a dark crimson Hugo Boss three-piece suit, tailoured to fit like a skin and spelled to still be comfortable. His shirt is also bespoke, a crisp white colour and incredibly soft to the touch.

There’s a pocket watch in his waistcoat with the gold chain attached to one of the buttons, and he has his nails painted a pitch-black colour, three black chrome studs along the cartilage of his right ear. His hair has been cut short back and sides.

He feels more like himself than he has in ages.

Showy, obviously aristocratic, but not like he has a stick pried up his backside, and a little bit dangerous.

“Have you seen my Rolex?”

Potter’s sudden voice from the doorway doesn’t make him flinch, but when he turns, he freezes up, brain shutting down as he lays eyes on him.

What a fucking asshole.

He looks _gorgeous_.

He’s wearing a stunning a black silk shirt with buttons that look like they’ll pop open if he moves too much, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and hugging tight at his biceps, the first few buttons undone to reveal the tattoos on his neck and forearms. He’s got a smudgy, faint layer of eyeliner around the bottom of his eyes, and in his left ear is a small black fake ear stretcher. His bespoke trousers leave little to the imagination, and on his feet, are black converses, which Draco would roll his own eyes at if he could remember how to be a real human being.

“Draco?” Potter says again, impatient. Draco blinks a few times, drawing in a sharp breath and feeling lightheaded and he hurtles back to reality and clears his throat.

“Right, fuck, yeah, sorry,” he manages, croaky enough to warrant another cough. “It’s in a box in the kitchen where you left it ready for this specific damn function, Potter.”

“Aaaaand he’s back,” Potter snorts, stepping into the room to check his hair in the mirror from near the doorway, failing to flick away the strand of hair that falls over his head. Draco’s heart beats like a jackhammer in his chest but he forces himself to put his walls back up. To keep it the fuck together. “You look delicious by the way.”

That’s it, Draco thinks, the universe hates him and wants him to suffer for all eternity.

“Cheers,” he replies blandly, “you don’t look like as much of a swamp creature as usual.”

Potter smirks at him and fuck if it doesn’t go straight to Draco’s dick.

“Thanks,” he replies, rolling his eyes and disappearing. Draco collapses on the side of his bed, legs apart, head bowed between them.

If he makes it through the night without jumping Harry Potter he’s going to have a medal made for himself and hang it on his wall.

* * *

 

The ball is a public event; not at the manor, but at some big venue in London.

They’ve apparated to Victoria Station and taken a black car, because his mother had insisted on it being a damn controversy with a red carpet and international wizarding press. Something about needing to make as much noise as possible. Draco can only imagine the fucking Prophet headlines tomorrow. He knows she’s been working with their old PR company to stage it all, including several newspapers and magazines doing short interviews.

She’d also directly instructed Draco to arrive with Potter and no one else, so they publicly reveal their buried hatchet to the world in one big swoop. She means well, he knows; they’ve been putting it off, and so far, the only thing the press have been printing is incredulous rumours and sneaky pap photos from bushes of them walking the streets together. It’s done nothing but make everything a million times more frustrating and vague, but Potter _abhors_ being the centre of attention, and quite frankly Draco is terrified of being at large spectacles like this, with the muddied Malfoy name and everything.

He’s not the only one high and jumpy on adrenaline and irritation either. Potter’s leg jiggles where it rests beside his in the back of the Mercedes and the driver keeps looking at them in the wingmirror, like they’re two grenades waiting to go off.

He grits his teeth and snaps his hand down over Potter’s on his knee.

“Stop fucking fidgeting, I’m crawling out of my skin.”

“You don’t think I am?”

“Potter, if you give them even the slightest hint that you’re freaking out, they’ll swallow you whole.”

Potter draws a sharp breath in through his nose like he’s trying to control his temper.

“I know that, I’ve been dealing with this shit my entire life. Fuck.”

“Look,” he says, wrapping his fingers around Potter’s and squeezing tight enough to break bone, “we’re going to be fine.”

“I fucking hope so.”

“We’re medicated, we look hot, and we fought a war. We can do this.”

“Together?” Potter says, his breath audibly shaky as he squeezes back.

“Together,” Draco agrees, steadfast as the car pulls up. The flicker of intense camera flashes bounces of the walls, and there’s already yelling and loud noise vibrating outside.

“Alright, lads,” the driver says, “dicks on, heads on, knock em dead.”

“Thanks, Carter,” Draco snorts as he nudges Potter to get to opening the door. He lets go of his hand, and feels his chest hollow at the loss of contact, but it’s too late and Potter is stepping out, and Draco’s body is moving on auto, getting out behind him. In the split second it takes for anyone to notice that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy have just arrived together in the same car after so long of nothing but hearsay, they’re hit with a wall of sound and bright lights.

Draco plasters a smirk on his face and forces his incessant nerves down into the darkest parts of his head, standing up straight and fixing his waistcoat where it’s gone a little wonky at his diaphragm. He presses a hand to the small of Potter’s back and guides him forward, their feet hitting the red carpet as the noise and lights intensify.

It’s cold, the air crisp and clear as it floods his lungs, and he’s greeted briefly by a woman in a pretty blue dress, a translucent, curled plastic cord going from her ear to the back of her neck and disappearing into her fur coat. She carries a clipboard, and takes Potter by the bicep, moving them both into position for their first lot of photos.

Draco automatically falls back into the role of famous aristocrat, stepping into the skin like it’s an old friend.

He wraps an arm around Potter’s waist, feels him mirroring, and winks. He’s greeted with a rush of adrenaline and mild satisfaction when the press basically erupt. They stand like that for a couple of minutes before the PR assistant moves them along to the next one, and the next one.

Then they’re being herded forward to the barrier for interviews.

“Mr Malfoy, what do you have to say about the rumours regarding the nature of your relationship with Mr Potter?”

Draco swallows discreetly and enforces his smirk, throwing an arm around Potter’s shoulders and squeezing at the left one.

“I say he’s still an annoying little shit and the bane of my existence.”

“He’s an idiot,” Potter manages, surprising Draco for a second that he’s even saying anything at all; he’d been expecting to have to carry them both through this on his own, “but I have to live with him, so I had to learn not to hate him.”

“And have you been successful?”

The woman interviewing them is stunning; tall, thin, dark hair and stunning gun metal eyes, her plump lips painted a scarlet red. But there’s something behind those eyes, a knowing intelligence that reads their every movement.

“Mostly,” Potter snorts, “although not so much when he leaves his laundry for weeks at a time and I have to do it all in one go.”

The interviewer laughs, and its only slightly artificial.

“And how are your courses at University going? Draco, there have been people talking about how you work at the hospital. Are you enjoying it?”

He grits his teeth and plasters a winning grin across his mouth, nodding.

“I love it,” he says, adding a layer of eloquence to his syllables, “I love saving lives.”

“Would you say it’s somewhat of a redemption mission?”

He feels Potter still slightly under his hand and he squeezes again, softer this time, letting him know he doesn’t have to come to his rescue. He has this covered. He can do this.

“It is my job, and I am good at it. I work with people from all walks of life, sometimes that means I have to save people who still have the ideals my family is famous for. But I don’t believe in that anymore. We’re in twenty seventeen. It’s a brave new world.”

“It is indeed. Mr Potter, you haven’t appeared in public for a while, is there a specific reason for that, and can you comment on the breakdown of your relationship with one Ginny Weasley. How do you feel about her being in a same gender relationship with Pansy Parkinson?”

Draco opens his mouth to say something, but Potter cuts across him, tucking a hand in the pocket of his slacks and clearly forcing the tension out of his body.

“I was in a bad place after the war, it was better for me to recover before I got back into this whole thing. And I was still at Hogwarts; you exist in a bubble when you’re part of that world so there wasn’t much time for me to be in the public eye at all. As for Ginny, I love her very much, she and Pansy are good friends of ours and we’re very happy for them.”

The interviewer is about to respond, but they’re being ushered along again, and Draco is almost proud of Potter; it was a smart answer, neutral and involved at the same time, almost like a politician. He leans into his ear.

“Well done,” he says, and Potter smiles at him, shrugging.

“It’s not my first rodeo,” he replies before Draco almost walks straight into Blaise. He takes him by the biceps and holds him at arm length, looking him up and down.

“Holy shit,” he shouts over the noise, and Draco still struggles to hear him, “you look delectable.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Draco laughs, suddenly feeling far less exposed as he hugs his best friend tightly, frowning at Weasley where Potter’s embracing him. He decides not to ask Blaise why he’s attending with him right now though, knowing it will fall mostly on deaf ears.

“Together,” the PR lady yells at them, lining them up, and Draco reminds himself that this isn’t reality; charade is all fickle and ridiculous. He’s a person, not a cardboard cut-out for people to fawn over.

And he gathers enough patience and strength to smirk again as the four of them link up together.

He glances down the carpet in both directions whilst the papz have their fill, noting several prominent Ministry figures, some low-level businessmen with big shares in corporate establishments, and some people like them too, Hogwarts celebrities, or war heroes as they’ll be called in print tomorrow.

Apart from Draco and his immediate circle of Slytherin friends however, he notes a lacking in other high society purebloods, and feels a hot lick of anger in his gut for the ones that are still patching their wounds with their tails between their legs, still clinging to the past, to an ideology that’s done nothing but tear everyone apart for decades.

They do this for another half hour or so, taking pictures with lots of other people too; Granger and Lovegood, Pansy and the Weasley girl, George and his latest arm candy. The PR girl, ever good at her job, even drags all of them together for a minute or two, a giant group photo of them all smiling like they aren’t broken, messy, drained out young adult war veterans who have been hiding from this exact thing for the past four years.

When they finally enter the venue, there’s an audible exhalation of relief, as doormen take jackets and staff show them through to the ballroom.

Its quieter in here, the lighting warm and inviting, the floating trays of varying brands of alcohol and soft drinks a welcome, sobering touch that sees Draco’s bones loosening and his lungs retracting.

He doesn’t lose sight of Potter for a single second however, remaining by his side the entire time as they politely introduce each other to their individual acquaintances.

Its two hours before Draco even gets anywhere near his mother.

“You better fucking appreciate this,” he says against her ear, and she tuts at him as she pulls back, rolling her eyes. She looks stunning in a long, dark blue silk gown and tasteful silver jewellery encasing small, yet clearly expensive diamonds.

“Honestly, Darling, you’re such a drama queen. Harry, I hope he’s been behaving himself; I’m not going to look at the papers tomorrow and find out he’s been biting expletives at them, am I?”

“No, Cissa,” Potter smiles softly, pressing a kiss to her cheek and resting his hand on Draco’s back, “he’s been perfectly civil.”

“I don’t believe that for a second, but I appreciate your transgression,” she laughs lightly, moving to greet Blaise where he’s still stood with Weasley. Draco has a feeling he doesn’t even want to know to be honest.

They find a table for the rest of the evening, somehow managing to flock together with their school friends. Draco is briefly reminded of their final year at Hogwarts, the lot of them being idiots on the bank in the lake, having snowball fights in the courtyards, getting off their faces in Hogsmede after they’d graduated.

And he loses himself for a moment, looking around at them all as they chat, flip each other off, shoot snarky remarks back and forth and tell each other about their recent lives. Gryffindors and Slytherins not only mixing, but choosing to do so, voluntarily spending time together.

Granger and Pansy slip their heels off under the table, and the Weasley girl leans against Pansy’s side, their manicured fingers threaded together like it’s the most casual thing in the world. Blaise has his arm draped over the back of Ron’s chair and Ron’s hand rests on Blaise’s thigh whilst he talks animatedly to Patil. Finnigan and Thomas, who are all but sitting in each other’s lap, lazily banter with Goyle and Millicent whilst George ropes Longbottom into their latest marketing scheme for that bloody joke shop.

If someone had told him only a short while ago that this would even be remotely possible, he’d have laughed himself silly and then hexed the shit out of them for having him on. Now, he sits among them all, relaxed in one of the overzealous chairs his mother has hired for the event, with Potter in close next to him, engaged in a conversation with Lovegood.

“Hey.” he’s tugged from his chain of thought by Potter’s long, brown fingers landing on his knee, the fingernails painted a sparkly dark blue. “You good?”

“I’m fine, Potter,” he drawls, but doesn’t bother keeping the exasperated smile off his lips either, winking at him. “Quit babying me.”

Potter smiles back, remembering when he’d said the exact same thing to him at the ball at Hogwarts three and a half years previous.

“It just looked like you went away for a second.”

“Well I’m back now,” he replies, draping his own arm across the back of Potter’s chair, hand dangling over his shoulder, “so you can stop that hero reflex in its tracks before it pokes me in the eye.”

Potter just laughs slightly, shaking his head.

“It’s weird, right?” he says. “This is so fucking weird.”

“You’re here, Potter, it’s always weird.”

“Ha bloody ha,” he tuts, shuffling his chair closer and leaning his body back against Draco’s chest, looking around the table with the same sort of expression Draco had just a couple of minutes ago, “you know what I mean.”

“It’s strange, yes,” Draco admits. “But we’ve never been ones for normal, have we?”

“Nah; I think I like it better this way. Even if you are a dick.”

“Thanks,” he snorts, but melts into the sudden body contact regardless, sighing heavily and tucking his chin above Potter’s crown, continuing to watch their friends interact, not giving a shit about the hired professional photographers dotted about the room taking pictures of people dancing and talking and shaking hands.

If there’s a photo of them in the Prophet  of them lounged against each other the following morning, looking decidedly more intimate than friends should be, Draco can’t even bring himself to be mad about it.

They look good. Together, that is.

They look… in love.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist uploading this to be honest, and I'm a few chapters ahead at the moment so it doesn't even matter. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for drug use (it is just weed, but if that's a problem, don't read it; stay safe). I suppose I'm warning for dub-con too, but that's if you count romantic entanglement whilst both parties are a little bit high on the wacky baccy, as dubious consent. I promise both people want to be doing what they're doing with absolute certainty.

Tugging on a pair of grey trackies, Harry huffs and ties his hair up behind his head haphazardly, stumbling from his bedroom to the living room.

“Roll me a two skin,” he grumbles in Draco’s direction where he’s sat in the armchair twisting a grinder with small lightning bolts printed all over it.

“You’re such a scab,” Draco replies, equally groggy, clearly having just woken up. Harry hates Draco in the mornings, because he’s particularly beautiful. He’s pushed his hair back with a teeth combed hair band, and he’s dressed in a loose ACDC tee and black Adidaz trackies. He looks adorably disgruntled, like he’s pissed off with having to open his eyes, and Harry wants to press kisses to his eyelids.

“You’ve mooched my grinder again, you can roll me a damn two skin.”

Draco just rolls his eyes and does it anyway, chucking it at him. Harry blindly pats around for it on his chest, and conjures a small flame between his forefinger and thumb, lighting up. Grabbing at the television remote, he turns it on and switches between channels for five whole minutes before settling.

“Really?”

“Listen, everyone loves a bit of Jezzer. Its law.”

“He’s a prick,” Draco rolls his eyes, tutting when Harry gestures for him to come and cuddle, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Harry doesn’t give a shit; he’s tired, and all he wants to do is get high with his housemate and watch shitty tv.

Anything else calling for his attention today can fuck the fuck off.

“You’re such a twat,” Draco pretends to be annoyed when Harry catches him by the wrist and tugs him down, wriggling about to get comfortable, the both of them simultaneously avoiding dropping their joints or burning each other.

“What do you fancy?” Harry asks as they finally decide on a comfortable position, Draco lounged against his side along the back of the sofa, legs tangled together, Harry’s arm around him where he holds his phone above them, bringing up the Just Eat app.

“It’s ten in the morning, Potter.”

“Yeah but we’ll get the munchies soon, and I’m really craving chicken balls.”

“Fine,” Draco tokes on his joint and pretends to be casually burying his face in Harry’s neck, “just get Chinese.”

“Spring rolls and crispy beef, right?”

Draco just makes a noise of confirmation, and Harry snorts, placing the blunt between his lips and selecting their order. Pressing pay, he reaches for the ashtray on the table, placing it beside his phone on his chest so they can both flick ash when needed.

Some woman screams at her estranged husband over a DNA test on the tele, and they both continue to smoke.

“Did you put in the special requests that the delivery guy can just come in?”

“Duh,” Harry snorts, having predicted that neither of them would want to move to answer the door. Honestly, they’re both so fucking lazy sometimes it’s unreal, but with how much the work through the week, Harry figures they’ve earned the right to refuse any physical labour on the weekends, on the odd occasion that neither of them are busy or committing to extra shifts.

“We need to pay the water bill at some point today.”

“I thought you were doing it yesterday?”

“I didn’t get the chance yesterday.”

“I’ll do it on my laptop when I can be bothered to move,” Draco replies, and Harry raises his eyebrows a little when Draco starts tracing his finger around the lines of the still healing tattoo. There’s a frown between Draco’s brows, but his general expression is soft and unguarded, and Harry doesn’t know if it’s the Cannabis or exhaustion or if his assumptions are correct, but he almost looks incredibly emotional; happy sad, and a little frustrated.

“You okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah,” Draco says, blinking out of his train of thought, glancing up at Harry as he tilts his head back a bit and blows smoke through his lips.

“You look a bit out of it.”

“Well we are huffing recreational narcotics, Potter.”

“Alright, it’s not even midday yet, enough of the big words.”

“I can rephrase if it’s too complicated for your puny brain-”

Harry nudges his thigh with his knee in half-serious warning, but rolls his eyes, smirking.

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Yeah, well, you like assholes.”

Harry is rendered speechless for a moment before he lets out a small, breathy laugh, flicking his eyebrows up again in agreement.

“Apparently so. I’m probably a bit of an asshole myself actually,” he laughs, and Draco starts to join in, the giggles starting low and gentle.

“You really are,” he says, voice shaking with mirth, “you’re like, the most sarcastic asshole I know.”

“I aim to please,” Harry shrugs, the both of them still laughing. It takes another thirty seconds for them to get it under control, Draco burying his face further in Harry’s neck.

“Holy shit, we’re such lightweights.”

“That’s not an insult; it’s cheaper.”

Just as Draco opens his mouth to say something else, the door knocks.

“Come in,” Harry calls, neither of them making any effort to appear more dignified as a flustered and shy looking delivery guy enters hesitantly.

“Just put it on the floor,” Draco mumbles.

“Thank you,” Harry smiles.

“Thankyouuuuuuuuuu.”

Harry starts laughing again at Draco’s higher pitch, and tries to look apologetically at the delivery man backing back out of the room, shutting the door behind him just as Jezzer calls his security guard on stage.

“We’ll eat in a little while,” Harry says.

“Hmm,” Draco hums, arm tightening around Harry’s waist, nose nuzzling along his jawline. Harry swallows heavily, feeling a warm haze swarming up around him, unable to think about anything but how _nice_ that feels. This whole thing is just really nice and intoxicating. Harry’s eyes flutter slightly as Draco’s nose brushes his cheekbone, and something in the back of his mind is telling him to break off the impending situation before it gets out of hand; they are high, after all, and exhausted from a very busy week, and completely alone for the first time in a long time.

But its fucking…. It’s just… it’s _so nice_. Draco is nice. His warm body is nice and his eyelids are hooded. Somehow, they both manage to put their joints in the ashtray and move it to the coffee table as Draco edges up and Harry moves under to accommodate him, their foreheads pressed together now, breathless and on a one-track road, everything else everywhere becoming non-existent and irrelevant. Draco’s knee slots between his own, and Harry’s hand skims up his arm to rest against his cheek, thumb pressing a soft pressure to the bottom of Draco’s jaw.

Time decelerates, and every second feels like a step closer to the edge of a cliff. But over the cliff, is a big wide dip of adrenaline, of a million miles per hour, of hurtling towards a reservoir of cool, relieving water and intense colour.

Harry’s heart thuds like a jackhammer against his chest, willing this to be it, this to be the moment they both break finally, walls crashing down, resolve crumbling under the overwhelming need to take the plunge.

He’s not sure which one of them fracture first, but suddenly Draco’s bottom lips is caught between his own, and his entire body feels like it comes alive, the contact light but powerful, drawing a breath so sudden, sharp, and deep in through his lungs that it almost hurts. A whimper escapes the back of his throat, and Draco swallows it, hands coming up to his face and deepening it, all wet sounds and laboured breaths and quiet, desperate, broken moans.

They’re starving men, fatigued and lost in each other, almost dying with the weight of the frenzied control and restraint they’ve been gripping onto for so long. But now they’re drinking each other in, drowning in each other, and Harry has never been so zoetic in his entire life.

Draco tastes like weed and coffee, and it shouldn’t be so hooking, but Harry thinks he’s never tasted anything so fucking _perfect_. It’s so Draco. A little unhealthy and self-destructive, but lovely and habitual at the same time. Better than any drug.

Draco’s hands fall to grip at Harry’s waist where his back arches, impetuous to be impossibly closer, every dip and line of their bodies fitting together and moving languidly, Harry’s fingers curling tightly in the hair at the back of Draco’s head, blood rushing through his veins like he’s flying.

Then it starts to slow again, their tongues lazy against one another, fingers dragging and loosening instead of grasping, and when their lips finally break apart, Harry drops his head to Draco’s shoulder, hands wrapped around Draco’s biceps to ground himself, panting. Somewhere in his stomach, something clinches as the fog clears a little and anxiety hums its arrival. But it’s there under a thick layer of arousal and adrenaline, his pulse thundering against his jugular. 

“Fuck,” Draco whispers, “I was trying not to do that.”

“You don’t fuckin say,” Harry breathes out, closing his eyes and sighing heavily, trying to find reality again, arms wrapping around Draco as he collapses against him, hugging him tight, like the moment he lets go he’ll lose this again.

“No, you – I mean I’ve _really_ been trying not to.”

“I know,” Harry replies, voice croaky, “you’ve been… I’ve been… we’ve both been idiots.”

“I just – Potter, you don’t get it. This is… what if-”

“Don’t start with the what ifs,” he interrupts him, drawing in a more gradual breath now, attempting to slow his heart beat, pressing a chaste kiss just under Draco’s ear, “let’s just… just today. Today we can just-”

“Yeah,” Draco says, the tension finally leaving his muscles, “yeah, okay.”

They stay like that for a while, and its Draco that moves first, nudging Harry to let him up. He panics for a second, but Draco rolls his eyes and holds out a hand, tugging him to his feet and lifting the bag of food, dangling it in his face.

A small smile breaks out on Harry’s mouth and he laughs, shaking his head, “shit I forgot.”

“C’mon, you twat,” Draco tuts at him, ruffling his hair, ignoring the way Harry bats his hand away, “we’ll warm this up.”

And just like that, Harry thinks today is going to be one he remembers for the rest of his life.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco thinks they need a break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck it, I'm just going to upload everything I've got so far and go from there.

Going back to work on Monday is the weirdest thing, because Draco has pretty much spent the past two days avoiding the world outside his and Potter’s apartment.

He’s… finding the whole thing surreal.

After the Kiss™, the weekend had been dedicated to shitty television, lots of fast food, and not actually discussing the huge fucking thing that had happened between them. Its driving Draco slightly insane if he’s being honest.

It’s not as though he and Potter have a lot of boundaries to begin with; since they’ve been living together, they’ve been existing in a strange sort of bubble of more-than-friendship. They wear each other’s clothes, look after each other, support each other, cuddle more than is probably normal for two people who aren’t really supposed to have any feelings for each other at all.

But with kissing involved now, it’s a whole other game. First thing in the morning, during the day when he’s passing through the lounge, sitting at the kitchen counter eating, taking breaks from uni work. Its not something he’s complaining about, because he’ll happily engage in consensual kissing with Harry Dickhead Potter in pretty much any situation presented to him, but it is a bit of a headfuck.

Which is why, when he’s on his break after working for seven hours straight, he brings up travel websites on his phone and starts flicking through five star hotels in Rome.

“Planning a vacation?”

He glances up when Faiza’s voice pulls him from his clouded train of thought, and closes his eyes when she comes up behind him and squeezes on a knot of muscle tensing in his shoulder. She plonks herself down on the sofa beside him and shamelessly leans in to observe his phone screen.

“I don’t know,” Draco sighs, dropping his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb.

“Uh oh, that sounds complicated.”

“You don’t fucking say,” he huffs, and she takes his phone from his hands. He looks sideways at her manicured fingers where they tap around on it, raising his eyebrows.

“Hotel rooms for two people,” she remarks, “are you taking me away?”

“Am I fuck?” he snorts, and she pouts, nudging him in the ribs. He rolls his eyes and she tuts at him, smiling.

“This one,” she says, clicking on a deal and handing it to him. “Its five star, slap bang in the middle of the city and short distances away from all the big landmarks.”

“It’s just an idea at the moment though; Potter will flip if I do something without asking him first.”

“He probably needs to get away too. Did uh… did something happen?”

“If you count sticking our tongues down each other’s throats when we were off our tits on Cannabis then yes,” he says blandly, “something happened.”

“Shit, man,” she says, pushing her chin back and widening her eyes.

“Quite.”

“Well this is a great idea then,” she shoves his phone back in his hands, “book it right now. You clearly need time away together to get your shit sorted.”

“We’re so understaffed-”

“For Merlin’s sake, Draco, you’re not the centre of the solar system in this hospital. You can take a week off; it won’t crumble without you.”

He draws in a deep breath and considers her for a moment. He can – if he thinks about it properly, he can probably hand most of his patients over and share them between the attendings he’s sure are going to be in every day for the next fortnight. And the thought of sun, Italian food, and sorting things out with Potter with a lot less distractions to fuck it up before its even started; feels like heaven if he’s being honest.

Decision made, he clamps down on the nerves in his gut and selects a stunning hotel with a private queen room, and a balcony in the heart of Rome. His shoulders are already relaxing as his thumb presses against the pay button.

This – yeah, this is exactly what they need right now.

* * *

 

“Is everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You’re calling me in the middle of the day. You’re normally completely unreachable until at least an hour after you’ve finished your shift.”

“How do you feel about Rome?”

There’s a short pause, and Draco shifts from foot to foot, toking on his cig as some Parawitches bring a new patient in on a stretcher, and get greeted with a gurney and a stressed looking Healer Thomas.

“Um… it’s okay? I’ve never been. Why?”

“We’re flying out there tonight.”

There’s a longer pause this time, and Draco forces himself not to panic. It’s a simple thing really, but for some reason it feels like there’s a lot riding on Potter’s reply.

“Are you sure everything is okay?”

“Potter, I’m fine, Merlin,” he snaps, biting down on growing irritation. Honestly, how the fuck is he so besotted with such an idiot? “I just thought you’d want to get away for a couple of weeks. And y’know, actually have a conversation about this clusterfuck of a situation we’ve got going on between us.”

“Well sure,” he replies, spluttering slightly, “don’t hold anything back.”

“I don’t intend to. But I want to be far away in a beautiful, warm country first. Preferably with you, but it’s your own loss if you don’t want to-”

“No, no! Jesus, yes, of course I want to. It’s just… sudden. Actually, it kind of makes a lot of sense.”

“I do that quite a lot,” Draco snorts, “it’s not my fault if you’re not paying attention.”

He flicks his cig away and steps out under the light spray of rain, letting it cool his heated skin and the cold air breathe calm into his lungs. He sits on the wall gating the apparation areas and rolls another one, the shiver creeping into his bones a welcome distraction, his scrubs blowing slightly against his body in the wind.

“What time is the flight?”

“Eleven,” Draco says, placing his phone on the wall beside him whilst he rolls, putting it on loudspeaker, “tonight. I’m going to come home and pack when I get off at eight, and then we’ll head over to the airport.”

“Any reason why we’re flying and not apparating?”

“I can’t be assed with it,” Draco says simply, “I’m fucking exhausted and I don’t really want to apparate five times across a bunch of continents with luggage.”

“Admit it, you like muggle things better sometimes.”

Draco makes a face, despite the fact that Potter can’t actually see him, and he hears a chuckle on the other end of the line. He flips the bird towards his phone regardless.

“Did you just stick your finger up at me?”

Draco narrows his eyes.

“No.”

“Liar. Alright, I’ll see you later then. Do you want me to order any food in for when you get home?”

“Nah, I’ll eat on the plane.”

“Okay. Go save lives.”

“Don’t blow up the apartment.”

 

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Pansy/Ginny, and Ron/Blaise for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to pay more attention to my minor pairings.   
> Let me know what you think, and as always, thank you.   
> Dee xx

Pansy raises her eyebrows as she opens the morning paper and tucks her right leg underneath her on her chair.

Plastered all over the front page is a giant headline reading ‘ _Enemies to lovers? When in Rome…_ ’

Underneath the large black writing, are several moving candids of Potter and Draco at cafes and walking through Roman courtyards. She sips at her coffee and settles in her chair, suddenly very intrigued, and mildly surprised.

Potter looks… good. Better than she’s ever seen him. He’s always been kind of peaky looking; short and a bit pinched and underfed, ungroomed and with constant dark lines under his eyes, like he never bloody sleeps.

But in these pictures, taken apparently without his knowledge, he’s tall and toned and relaxed, brown skin shining under the golden light of warm sun, scarred fingers decorated with a pretty assortment of random rings, tattoos on show along his arms and disappearing under the sleeves of a loose floral button down. Half the buttons are undone, revealing the stretch of a tattooed chest too. His hair is shoulder length now, soft and curly and a bit thin, but healthy all the same, and his green eyes are bright under his pantos glasses.

He’s wearing skinnies on his legs, ripped at the knees with beaten up converses, wand tucked in his front pocket but not visible to someone who isn’t looking for its outline. He’s stood outside a small restaurant rolling a cigarette. The picture beside it shows Draco exiting the restaurant with a bag of wrapped subs and two iced coffees. He places them down on the table nearby and moves around Potter, hand brushing around the small of his back and across his middle as he goes to sit down.

Draco is wearing a loose cotton pullover and light blue skinnies, also ripped at the knees but rolled at the ankles, with light green boat shoes. They never look at the cameras, although Pansy smirks at the almost-glances in their general direction from Draco; he knows they’re there, but doesn’t seem overly bothered by them. In fact, the third photo shows him reaching over the table to lace his fingers together with Potter’s free hand once he’s lit up.

The rest of the photos are much the same, and she can’t help the pleased smile spreading over her mouth when she flips the pages and finds the final one.

It’s a shot of them walking along the path away from the Colosseum. Potter says something, snorting at himself and laughing at his own joke like he always does. Draco rolls his eyes, and nudges him, knocking him off balance and stumbling to run forward a few steps in case of retaliation. Potter gets his balance back, phone in his left hand. Draco continues walking but Potter runs at him and jumps, jolting him forward a few steps and landing draped over Draco’s back.

Draco grumbles something, but his hands hike his legs up further over his hips, supporting his weight regardless, and there are shots of them from several different angles as they continue to walk away, again impervious to the presence of the papz as Potter plays on his phone in front of Draco’s face.

“What are you smirking at?”

Ginny’s voice drags Pansy’s eyes upwards, and she shrugs, looking her up and down and appreciating the sight of her in just oversized t-shirt, short hair a bit of a mess atop her head, expression curious but still a little vacant, having just woken up.

“The lads are having fun in Rome,” she replies, catching Ginny’s wrist as she moves to pass her to get to the kettle, letting the scent of her wash over her, flooding her head with calm. Pansy presses their lips together softly, smiling into the contact.

“Oh shit, Skeeter got a hold of pap pictures?”

“Doesn’t she always?” Pansy snorts, letting her up and taking a Sobranie from its packet, conjuring a flame between her forefinger and thumb and lighting up. Mornings are one of her favourite things about being with Ginny Weasley in their pokey little flat.

They’re soft and quiet regardless of the weather outside, and when Ginny does get to spend time at home off-season, they kind of stay wrapped up in each other, doing little else but fuck, eat, sleep, and watch the abysmally awful films Ginny sticks in the picture box she calls a ‘television’.

On the odd occasion that they do venture outside, it’s just for a walk through Kensington gardens with their golden retriever, Isaac, and apparently that shit counts for news because they can’t even do that without making an appearance in the damn papers.

Still, she thinks, as she slides The Prophet across the dining table towards Gin, Skeeter’s photographers do have a knack for good angles, if these ridiculously sweet candids of Potter and Draco are anything to go by.

“Harry won’t be happy with these,” Ginny huffs, an adorable little frown creasing her brow, “they went away to get some privacy.”

“Oh c’mon, Weasley,” Pansy rolls her eyes, toking on her cigarette and running one hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face, “they had to be expecting this; the papz are fucking vultures, even in the wizarding world. They’d get this kind of bullshit even if they went to some undiscovered island. And anyway, they look happy, don’t they?”

Ginny looks hesitant and Pansy feels a rather embarrassing rush of affection.

“It has taken them long enough.”

“Precisely,” Pansy says, flicking into the ashtray, “it’d come out sooner or later. Just a pity they’ve left it so long; you’d think the war would have taught them a lesson, y’know, ‘life is short’, all that malarkey.”

“It is short, you’re just opposed to positive affirmations.”

“I don’t think that’s a positive affirmation, Weasley; it’s more of a cheesy pick up line. Regardless, they’re couple of the year. I think we’ll have to have an outing this afternoon, steal back our status.”

Ginny rolls her eyes, a grin gracing her mouth.

“Malfoy will be furious.”

“Good,” Pansy rolls the word off her tongue, winking at her, “I don’t give up power easily.”

“You’re cute,” Ginny chuckles, pffting at her and flicking a fleck of her drink in her face, “but you screamed so loud for me last night we alarmed the neighbours, so you played yourself there, sweetheart. Maybe stick to the day job.”

* * *

 

Ron draws in a sharp breath through his teeth and wets his lips, hand patting down on his phone and keys in his jacket pocket as Blaise holds the door open for him. Ron rolls his eyes and huffs, pushing through it. Blaise snickers slightly and follows.

“Table for two, darling,” Blaise smirks at the waitress that greets them. It takes her a moment to blink away the part of herself that’s rendered speechless by Blaise’s ridiculous charm, and leads them straight to a corner booth, leaving them with their menus, almost tripping over her own feet as she goes.

“Poor girl.” Ron says. “You know you don’t have to do that with everyone you meet, right?”

“You know you’re not on shift on your shrink ward, right?”

“Fuck off,” Ron snorts, shrugging out of his blazer and shifting a little, nerves spiking in his gut, making his heart jump and his breath catch a little.

“Stop fidgeting, you look like you’re on speed.”

“Well, excuse me if I’m fucking anxious,” Ron can’t help snapping, narrowing his eyes as he starts fanning at his face with the menu, loosening the collar of his shirt where it feels like a noose around his neck. This is crazy. It’s crazy and he should just get up and go home where things make more sense.

“You don’t need to be.” Blaise reaches across the table and take’s Ron’s hand firmly in his own. The pressure of his fingers against the pulse point of his wrist is warm and grounding and it sends a gentle stream of calm through his veins. Ron pauses for a few seconds, forcing himself to relax. He breathes deeply, swallowing and looking down at the table once, before looking up again, meeting Blaise’s eyes.

They’re a beautiful honey brown, as ever, and void of the usual façade he wears like a second skin. Soft, reassuring, and a little nervous himself; all of it just for Ron. It’s a bit weird. He feels like he has this responsibility now.

Blaise Zabini deals in masquerades and carefully crafted personas, an expert in knowing what costume to don for each person he comes into contact with. But in the past few months, the more time they’ve been spending together, the less Ron has seen of that mask when they’re around each other. Which means in a world full of people Blaise doesn’t trust in the slightest, Blaise Zabini trusts him.

It’s terrifying and thrilling all at the same time, and he knows… he _knows for sure_ this is important. Even if he isn’t quite sure how yet.

“Fuck,” Ron sighs, sitting back in his chair and tugging his tie down slightly, “I know. Sorry. This is just-”

“New?” Blaise raises his eyebrows, head tilted to the left slightly as he leans forward and brings Ron’s hand to his mouth, lips pressing gently against his knuckles. Ron has to take a moment to centre himself again, not quite believing the kind of affect that simple touch has on him, especially from a _dude_.

He isn’t homophobic. He never has been. Charlie is as gay as they come, and loads of his mates are lgbt. It’s just that he never thought he was one of them. It’s a bit of a shock to the system, feeling something like this so strongly and so suddenly.

And it isn’t like this thing, whatever it is, is much of a secret. They’d turned up at Mrs Malfoy’s charity event together, and hadn’t exactly spent the evening discouraging gossip about the nature of their relationship. Which, Ron thinks, is about as clear to them as it is to him.

“This is new for me too, love,” Blaise tells him, voice like velvet. But there’s a small break in it, and Ron knows this is Blaise making himself vulnerable, even if it is just to take some of the weight off of him. And… he’s never been called ‘love’ before. At least not by any of his romantic partners; the word is full of meaning and resonates more than Ron suspects Blaise meant it to. It makes Ron’s chest contract and he gathers himself properly, shoving down the doubts and how strange this feels to him, and also leaning forward, placing his other hand over Blaise’s where it grips at his other one, squeezing lightly and dropping their foreheads together for a long moment.

“We’ll get used to it eventually.”

“Food first?”

“Man after my own heart,” Ron grins, eyes closed as he lets himself breathe in Blaise’s cologne. Blaise tuts at him again, lifting his head to press a quick kiss between his brows, before drawing away. Ron finds himself missing the contact, the warm haze radiating off of the proximity falling away.

His stomach grumbles though, and he revels in the fond exasperation on Blaise’s face when he picks up the menu and starts avidly reading through it. Problem is, he doesn’t have a fucking clue what any of these things even are.

“The duck,” Blaise laughs lightly, shaking his head, “start with the duck and you can be more adventurous next time okay?”

“Someone’s cocksure,” Ron remarks, raising his eyes above the laminated menu, “what makes you think there’s going to be a next time?”

“I always get what I want, Weasley, you should know that by now.”

“Yeah, alright,” Ron humours him, “keep telling yourself that, babe.”

He looks back down at the menu to avoid making eye contact after dropping the reciprocating pet name. He can’t believe he just said it, but it had just slipped out. And actually, it had felt natural as anything slipping off his tongue. Nice. Domestic.

When he does look at Blaise again, there’s a slight flush to his dark cheekbones, and he’s smiling like the cat that got the cream.

“I got you, didn’t I?”

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Romeantic....  
> see what I did there? no? I'll uh... see myself out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cough* I wasn't drawing from any other famous relationship here, none at all *cough*

Waking up in the middle of the night in Rome, is a bit surreal if Draco’s being honest.

It’s hot as fuck and he’s sweating his balls off, but when he looks down to the bottom of the bed, Potter is sat at the window seat.

His hair has been dragged back into a bun, but two stray curls fall either side to frame his face and he’s crosslegged, dressed in nothing but his boxer briefs with his guitar in his lap and his green leather bound notebook open in front of him. He takes that thing bloody everywhere with him, clutches it sometimes like it’s a lifeline.

And recently he’s been talking to his head lecturer about specialising in poetry, particularly lyrical poetry and music writing. Its… Draco sometimes wants nothing more than to steal the notebook and read through it. Potter is so attached to it, it makes him wonder what on earth it could contain.

When he’d mentioned it to his Mother over brunch though, she’d smiled some sort of weird secret smile and told him how personal writing songs can be sometimes, and how important it is that he lets Potter have that one thing, the one thing in the world that is his for as long as he wants it to be.

Which is why it’s really fucking alarming to wake up and find Potter sat there blatantly wide open and scribbling in it intermittently between strumming and humming small bits of broken tune.

Potter doesn’t sing in front of anyone very often, Draco’s observed; that’s a bit of his soul he keeps private too. He thinks, sometimes, about whether Potter will ever share those songs with the world, whether he’ll take it up professionally. How the process of recording and producing music is even done in the wizarding world, he has no idea. Objectively, Draco knows that the music scene is nowhere near as big in their society as it is for muggles.

The only people that are really popular in the wizarding world are small, obscure grunge bands and cheesy romantic musicians. But now, as he stays very still and tries to shut his eyes enough that he could still be seen as asleep, and watches Potter try to push through a small block in whatever he’s writing, it’s interesting how the asshole has somehow combined those two things.

He catches small lines of lyric.

‘ _They wanna buy my pride, but it just aint up for sale_ ’, ‘ _don’t forget where you belong, home_ ’, ‘ _but don’t burn out, even if you scream and shout, it’ll come back to you, and I’ll be here for you_ ’. Even without context, Draco knows they’re snippets from several different songs, all of them having their own unique personality, but all of them coming with a gravelly, yet soft rock tone. And holy shit Potter’s voice is _beautiful_. A little edgy, but working well when he moves between notes and dips up and down, maintaining a mild baritone the whole time.

Draco can’t believe he’s known Potter pretty much his whole life and not picked up on the fact that he’s a ridiculously talented musician, if a little disorganised. Even that is part of why it’s so good though; its raw, truthful, more real somehow.

He chooses now to stir slightly, acting out like he’s only just waking up, a warm tightness singing in his chest. He stretches, because his muscles have actually knotted in his sleep, and slowly sits up, giving Potter the chance to close up shop if he wants to.

He doesn’t, and Draco has to work not to reveal how ridiculously fucking emotional that makes him, that Potter trusts him enough to write and sing in front of him, whether he’s asleep or awake. Maybe it’s the fact that its 3am. 3am always makes people less guarded.

“Hey,” Potter smiles at him, simply adjusting the guitar a little in his lap and flattening his hand out against the wood, the black star he has tatted at the top of his thumb on the upside of his hand catching on the moonlight.

“Why are you awake? It’s the middle of the fucking night, Potter.”

“I’m aware,” Potter snorts, the smile remaining in place, a weird, blissed out look on his face, even if his eyes are still focused with a hint of complicated emotion.

“What are you writing?”

“Lots of things,” Potter shrugs, “but I’m really trying to finish this one for the end of the month.” He points at the page his book is open on.

“Why the end of the month?”

“Paul wants me to submit it as part of my portfolio for poetry. Wants to publish it in the anthology.”

“Wow,” Draco remarks, eyebrows flicking upward as he settles back against the headboard, thin bedsheets pooling at his waist, hand scratching absently at his bare abdomen, “that’s pretty great, Potter. Is it good?”

“I – maybe,” he says, hesitating. “I think so. It’s quite personal though.”

“Is writing anything other than personal, though?”

“I don’t know, it’s weird. Writing is personal until you give it to someone else; then it’s like… out there. There’s nothing you can do to tell them how to think or feel about it. It isn’t yours anymore.”

“The death of the author,” Draco smirks, thinking back to all the times Potter has read his essays out loud to make sure they’re coherent.

“Alright, well play it to me and I’ll tell you if it’s good.” He tries to be casual about it, and he thinks he just about manages it, but Potter’s eyes widen and his mouth opens like he wants to say something, but can’t. Then he seems to make a decision, and swallows, nodding once and letting out a long, shaky breath.

He starts of carefully, fingers strumming like they’re holding back, the sound overwhelmingly resonant in their large hotel room.

“ _My hands, your hands, tied up, like two ships. Drifting, weightless, waves try to break it_.”

Draco feels the breath leave him, heart hitching a beat in his chest, lips parting.

“ _I'd do anything to save it. Why is it so hard to say it?_ ” Potter clears his throat a little, head bowed and watching his own hands move as he shuffles back a bit, getting more comfortable.

“ _My heart, your heart, sit tight like book ends. Pages, between us, written with no end. So many words we're not saying. Don't wanna wait 'til it's gone. You make me strong_.”

There’s a breath and then he hits the chorus full on, and Draco almost chokes on the embarrassing slam of emotion that hits him right in the gut.

“ _I'm sorry if I say, "I need you”, but I don't care, I'm not scared of love. 'Cause when I'm not with you I'm weaker. Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong, that you make me strong?”_

Draco swallows tightly and sits up, one of his knees bending upward, arm resting over the front of it. That rough edge to some of his words is stunning, whilst the rest of the words come out smoothly. He doesn’t know why Potter was worried, this is the most intimate, private thing he’s ever experienced.

“ _Think of, how much, love that's been wasted. People, always, trying to escape it._ _Move on to stop their heart breaking. But there's nothing I'm running from. You make me strong._ ”

The stray strand of hair falls in Potter’s eyeline, and his free hand comes up to tuck it behind his ear, and Draco is struck by how fucking screwed he is, for this stupid incredulous, idiotic moron who has been under his skin since the moment they met.

“ _I'm sorry if I say, "I need you." But I don't care, I'm not scared of love. 'Cause when I'm not with you I'm weaker. Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong? So, baby, hold on to my heart. Need you to keep me from falling apart. I'll always hold on. 'Cause you make me strong_.”

* * *

 

The picture he’d snapped of Potter with his guitar following the impromptu performance, goes viral on Instagram.

Potter finds it hilarious, and laughs himself silly at the thousands of comments that read, quite simply ‘drarry is real (heart eyes emoji)’. They’ve been vlogging intermittently through the whole trip, and have a shit tonne of footage to edit when they get home. But going back to the airport ready for home doesn’t feel as suffocating as Draco thought it might, despite the throng of papz greeting them at both at Fiumicino, and at Heathrow.

It still baffles him that someone somewhere, thinks they’re both important enough to physically send reporters one thousand miles away to get a few shots of them being idiots in a foreign country together, but whatever, to each their own.

Potter gets him back for the Instagram picture, by snapping one of him sleeping on the plane and posting it everywhere. Draco tries to be really pissed off, but the caption kind of tames the irritation, ‘I think he’s a bit worn out. #watacutietho’. Its cheesy as fuck and incredibly embarrassing, but it also makes him want to kiss him, which he does.

And there’s something so nice about getting back to the apartment, and he makes a beeline for his own bedroom, flopping down on his bed and letting out a long, relieved moan of contentment. Somewhere in the back of his head, he remembers he has to go back to work tomorrow, but even that makes him a bit excited; and right now, he kind of just wants to sleep for a long time.

“I’m gonna call Hermione and tell her we’re back, but I’m ordering fish and chips afterward. You want in?”

“Fuck yeah!” Draco calls back to Potter through his still open door.

“And I’m running a bath if you want one soon.”

“Potter, I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll remember how much you hate me tomorrow.”

Draco just snorts, rolling his eyes and snuggling into his duvet, not even a little bit ashamed of the fact that he probably looks like a perturbed child right now. He dozes in and out for a while, before a hand on his arm is nudging him awake.

“Bath’s ready,” Potter says, pressing a kiss to his forehead. Draco bats him away, mumbling sleepily about soppy Gryffindors. But the thought of soaking in hot water with his new boyfriend for a while is simply too much of a nice idea to pass up on, and he’s pulling himself up out of bed a few moments later.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is from Midnight Memories, and its called Strong. Go listen to it.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drarry is real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it because I'm having so much fun. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, and as always, thank you so much.  
> Dee xx

Draco wakes in his own bed.

It’s a bit strange, he has to admit. He’s spent the past two weeks waking up next to Potter; there’s a weird ache in his stomach. But he pushes it down, not wanting to be That Boyfriend™. He can do without Potter. He can. Besides, they’ve only been ‘together’, for a fortnight, it isn’t like they’re incapable of not sleeping apart.

He reaches over his bedside table and grabs for his phone, squinting at the brightness of the sudden light. Social media is a fucking mess, to be honest, but he’s a narcissist and there is a definite part of him that gets a stupid kick out of the thousands of notifications in a little red box at the corner of his Instagram app.

The majority of them are just people speculating; wizards and muggles alike (although the muggles don’t know it), about his and Potter’s whereabouts for the past couple of weeks. Not that it isn’t obvious, they’ve both been posting about being in Rome. But there are muggles talking about how they’ve been together for the past year and have just been under some sort of fucked up censorship contract.

Why they would even need a contract is beyond Draco, because they aren’t even properly famous for anything in the muggle world, apart from vlogging and vining, which is just something they do for fun anyway. But even in the wizarding world they’re known for being young adult war veterans and don’t need to be censored as such. It would probably be a different story if they were like… actors or international musicians in a band. But they’re not. They’re just pissed off poster boys for war.

His favourite thing about it though, is the comments from the lgbt community. People talking about how inspiring it is to see a mostly out biracial bisexual same gender couple being open on the internet. It’s nice. For every ridiculous, biphobic comment, there are a hundred others that thank them. They haven’t done anything, and Draco doesn’t even feel remotely brave as such; Potter is the brave one. Draco is just the rich white boy who happened to fall in… fond. He’s fallen in _fond_. Not the L word. It’s only been sixteen days. Jesus, he needs to get a handle on himself.

As if on cue, there’s a knock on his bedroom door, and Draco can’t help rolling his eyes as Potter sticks his head around it and Pavo comes rushing in, jumping up on his chest and curling up there.

“Can I come in?”

“Potter, you don’t have to ask, bloody hell.”

Potter just rolls his eyes and smiles, closing the door behind him.

He’s still only dressed in his boxer briefs, clearly having just woken up too, and he flops onto the bed beside him, insistently crawling up Draco’s body and ducking under his arm, head resting in the crook of Draco’s neck to watch what he’s doing on his phone.

“Lewis called me last night before I went to sleep.”

“Oh?” Draco furrows his brow, confused as to why the head of the SU is calling Potter so late when they’ve just gotten back off holiday.

“Book Saturday night off work,” Potter says, and Draco’s curiosity grows.

“Why?”

“I have a gig at the SU. I’m playing a set with some of my songs.”

Draco doesn’t know how to feel about that. Obviously, his first concern is Potter, who up until very recently has barely even told anyone that he sings or writes songs. His sudden desire to perform at a populated wizarding University bar is a little jolting to say the least. But Potter doesn’t do anything he doesn’t absolutely want to these days, so its clear there’s a good reason for his change of heart.

“Okay,” Draco replies, “but I’m going to need a bit of context first.”

“I don’t know,” Potter shrugs against him, long finger tracing the tattooed birds flying across the skin of Draco’s abdomen. “I think playing for you the other day made me think about how it’d be nice. To share some of my stuff with people, y’know? It’s – it’s not anything to do with-”

“Potter, I don’t think this makes me less important to you because you want to play for other people.”

Draco cuts across him because he knows what he’s going to say next, and he doesn’t bloody need to, the ridiculous idiot. Regardless of who hears his stuff next, Draco will always be Potter’s first, and that’s special. He’s not stupid.

“Right,” Potter says, “uh… I just wanted you to know that.”

“I do,” Draco insists, hand coming tracing up the curve of Potter’s waist to play with the curls of his hair, getting longer by the week. They touch his collar bones now, and Draco might maybe be slightly obsessed with them. Its incredulously endearing whenever he shakes his hair forward and messes them up before flicking his head back and rearranging them, running his hand through it to push it from his face. It’s kind of evolved from what used to be a nervous tick, to Potter just being subconsciously aware of whether they’re the way he likes them to look.

“Good. It starts at seven.”

“I’ll sort something out with Faiza.”

* * *

 

Harry can’t quite believe the past few weeks have even happened.

This time last month he and Draco were just friends… well, mostly anyway. They’ve never really been just friends, but they’ve been skirting around each other since they went back to Hogwarts for their last year in 2015. Holy – fuck, that’s… it’s been four years. They’ve been close for four years.

And Harry feels so different, and so much the same. When he looks in the mirror, he’s healthier. Taller, broader; still thin, but toned and comfortable in his body, comfortable in his silk patterned shirts and skinny jeans. Comfortable in his skin, the ink etched into the pigments part of his own little masterpiece. And growing his hair out was a decision he never settled on, so much as allowed to happen as time went on. He likes it. It fits.

Compared to the shorter, pinched looking teenager he’d been at the end of the war, with dark lines and bags under bloodshot eyes and blanched brown skin, he’s never looked so… normal. Well, normal in the sense of the fact that you can barely tell he’s a young adult war veteran anymore, not unless you focus on the scars.

So, it’s only natural that a lot of other things in his life would keep growing and changing around him too. But time, he’s learned, is a gradual process that you don’t see until you stop to look, which isn’t something he or his friends are particularly adept at, for obvious reasons.

Which is why he’s said yes to performing tonight.

It scares the hell out of him, if he’s being honest, but its… he’s figuring out that’s a good kind of scared. The kind of scared that doesn’t herald disaster and death, but something better, something that might even be a clue to what it is he wants to do for the rest of his life.

He smiles for a selfie with one of the Potions BA students, throwing up two fingers as a peace sign. She thanks him and they talk for a few minutes. He learns that her mother fought in the battle of Hogwarts and lost her leg, but is recovering very well and is about to be a guinea pig for the prosthetics department at St Mungos.

But when she returns to her friends at the bar, he’s left at the side of the stage with the awareness that in just a few minutes he’s going to be up there. He isn’t even playing guitar. One of the History post grads affiliated with the SU’s entertainment program is doing it for him, so it’ll be nothing but him, a spotlight, and a mic he’s never used before.

He watches Draco where he’s sat with Hermione at the bar. She’s rolling her eyes at him and Blaise and Ron – he still hasn’t asked – are stood very close to each other, talking quietly. They look so natural and at home, it’s kind of overwhelming for a moment.

But he doesn’t have long to take it in because Lucas is signalling at him from the other side of the stage. He draws in a deep breath and picks up the chilled box of water bottles he’s going to need for the next hour, stepping up.

He spends a second going over the setlist with the band, sipping at one of the bottles already, listening behind him at the back of his mind to the way the bustle of the SU quietens slightly as more people catch onto the fact that he’s about to start.

He coughs a little into the mic when he finally forces himself to walk up to it, adjusting it to his height and running his hand through his hair, stomping down on the way his hands start to shake.

“Alright, lads,” he grins, and is surprised to find that as terrified as he is, it’s genuine and actually quite easy.

“Oi Oi!” Ron calls, and Harry chuckles, shaking his head and tutting.

“Is everyone good? Is everyone comfortable?”

There’s a resounding confirmation, and a few people wolf whistle. Harry’s grin softens to a smile.

“Awesome. Listen, you need to be gentle with me tonight, alright? This is my first time after all.”

Everyone laughs, and his eyes catch Draco’s. He’s turned on his bar stool, and is watching him intently, looking calm and cool. Its grounding, and Harry feels his nerves dissipate further.

“Seriously though, you’re a great crowd tonight,” he pauses for a small cheer, “so I’m going to do my best not to cock it all up.”

“That’s what he said!” Layla, a third-year girl taking the same course as him, calls up through cupped hands. He flips her the bird and she winks at him.

“This… uh, this first song is Through The Dark.”

The band start up, and the beat is so calming, nice and gentle, but catchy. He’d loved writing this one.

He taps his foot.

“ _You tell me that you're sad and lost your way, you tell me that your tears are here to stay, but I know you're only hiding. And I just wanna see you_.”

He starts off soft, easing into it, holding the mic stand and moving subtly, stepping back and forth when he takes a breath for the next lyric.

“ _You tell me that you're hurt and you're in pain, and I can see your head is held in shame, but I just wanna see you smile again, see you smile again_.”

He feels something in his chest coming alive as people start to stand from their seats, and push off the bar and tables and walls, taking notice. There are a few raised eyebrows, and he knows there are people that didn’t expect him to have much of a talent, just that he’d be glorified and supported anyway, because of his name and who he is. But this is good. This is… this is amazing. And thrill bursts up in his stomach as he reaches the bridge, dancing like magic through his veins.

“ _But don't burn out, even if you scream and shout, it'll come back to you, and I'll be here for you_.”

There’s an absent beat before the chorus, and a jolt of adrenaline hits, his mouth curling upward, eyes stinging with a slight wetness.

“ _Oh, I will carry you over, fire and water for your love. And I will hold you closer, hope your heart is strong enough. When the night is coming down on you, we will find a way, through the dark_.”

People start tapping along, looking at each other with gradual smiles and slightly breathless chuckles, some people touching their partners and friends softly. He catches the glimpse of one guy winking affectionately at his boyfriend and Harry finally let’s go, happiness flooding his body, the heat of the light shining down on him a welcome sensation.

“ _I wish that I could take you to the stars, I'd never let you fall and break your heart. And if you wanna cry or fall apart, I'll be there to hold you. You tell me that you're hurt, it's all in vain, but I can see your heart can love again, and I remember you were laughing, so let's just laugh again_.”

He starts clapping, allowing his feet to step back and forth as he looks back at the band, grinning again as the music slows for a few seconds through the momentary key change.

“ _But don't burn out even, if you scream and shout. It'll come back to you, back to you_.”

He makes eye contact with Draco again, and the warmth in his heart makes him feel embarrassingly fond. Draco’s lips are also twitching, and as he hits the chorus again, they move fully into stunning smile, blue eyes glittering.

“ _Oh, I would carry you over fire and water for your love, and I will hold you closer, hope your heart is strong enough. When the night is coming down on you, we will find a way, through the dark_.”

“ _Hey!_ ” he shouts, stepping back for a moment, taking a quick swig of water before returning, wetting his lips. Like he’d instructed them in rehearsals, the band leave out the bass and the next bridge is acoustic.

“ _And you don't need, you don't need to run, and you will see it's easy to be loved. I know you wanna be loved_.”

He holds the note, and another cheer supports him through it.

“ _Oh, I will carry you over, fire and water for your love. Oh, I would carry you over fire and water for your love. And I will hold you closer, hope your heart is strong enough. When the night is coming down on you, we will find a way, through the dark_.”

Again, the band stop playing and stomp their foot with him. He focuses, feeling the song soothing through his veins. The whole bar clap with him this time, and some of them are singing with him. It sounds wonderful. Its… it’s just one of the best moments of his life.

“ _Oh, I would carry you over, fire and water for your love. And I will hold you closer, hope your heart is strong enough. When the night is coming down, we will find a way…_ ”

He pauses for a moment, and it resonates everywhere.

“ _Through the dark_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Through The Dark is also a track from Midnight Memories, and I can't gush enough about this album because it makes me so happy, just like the wonderful boys who wrote and performed it. If you like pop music, with strong edges of folky, indie, and rock sounds, please listen to it. Its wonderful. I also strongly suggest you watch the live performances when they were on tour because its a whole different kind of great.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Harry's first public performance, and a writing session with Hermione.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a disclaimer because I probably should have put them on the past two chapters as well: I do not own any of the songwriting credits to the music referenced in Chapter 14, 15, and 16 of this story. All music presented and referenced in the past three chapters, including this one, belongs to One Direction, Syco, and Sony. 
> 
> Another note: the song Harry and Hermione are working on in this chapter is called Walking in the Wind by One Direction, written by Harry Styles, Julian Bunetta, John Ryan and Jamie Scott. Its one of my favourites in the deluxe edition of Made In The A.M, and you should definitely go and listen to the entire album because its stunning. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy, and as always, thank you.   
> Dee xx

_Breaking! Potter looks happy!!_

_As most Prophet readers will know, over the past four years much has changed regarding our boy wonder and his clan of saviours. Amid reports of severe mental health issues, dramatic intergroup relationships and break ups, and rumours of feuding and substance abuse, whenever photographed, the saviours have appeared tired, vacant, or pent up and pallid. A stream of images have painted a flow of misery and turbulent recovery as they faced the reality of everyday life after war, particularly as public figures in the limelight._

_But on Saturday, Potter and Malfoy were seen leaving a University Student Union bar where Potter was said to have performed a debut musical set with self-written songs, and the two of them couldn’t have looked more content._

_As usual, they didn’t interact much with the press visiting the venue, but they walked hand in hand, Malfoy leading Potter along, the both of them looking chipper and less like they were going to massacre the paparazzi. The joined hands is just the latest update in a sea of content suggesting the two have now completely put their childhood grievances aside and entered into a romantic entanglement._

_Sources close to the pair of previous deadly enemies have reported that they are ‘very much in love’, and that their relationship is ‘intense’. We here at The Daily Prophet struggle to see how said relationship can be anything but, with their history of vicious schoolboy antics and burning hate motivated rivalry. Still, it has to be questioned, what has stemmed this new union and is there something more sinister going on?_

_Updates to follow._

Draco sighs heavily, disappointed but not really surprised that The Prophet made Potter’s first public performance about their relationship. Bottom feeders, the lot of them.

“Stop scowling,” Potter rolls his eyes, “it doesn’t bother me. Not like it used to anyway.”

Potter is on top of the world this morning, naturally. Draco’s never been much of a singer or a writer, but despite popular opinion, he is capable of empathy, and he can imagine how an expression of creativity and the things Potter has maybe kept very close to his heart for the past half a decade, might make him feel elated. It’s got to be one hell of a high.

“So where do you go from here?”

“What do you mean?” Potter frowns as the kettle goes off and he pours them both coffees.

“Well you performed for the first-time last night, you were a huge hit and you’re already famous. Do you think you want to record anything?”

Potter’s eyes widen for a moment and his eyebrows flick up, lips pursing in contemplation.

“I don’t have a fucking clue,” Potter says, handing him the coffee and sitting on Draco’s left thigh where he’s perched on the kitchen island stool, arm automatically going around Draco’s shoulders, “I’ve pretty much just been worrying about last night. I haven’t even thought about – fucking hell, I don’t even know if I was any good. They seemed to enjoy it but-”

“Potter, you’re dense but you’re not stupid, as much as it pains me to admit it,” Draco snorts, huffing and hiding his face in Potter’s neck. Potter’s hand comes up to gently card through the back of Draco’s hair, and he relaxes further, breathing in deeply and letting Potter’s scent wash over him, easing the morning headache twinging behind his eyes. “You know you were good.”

“Hmmm….” Potter’s voice takes on a slight teasing tone and Draco tuts, “just good? I’m a little offended to be honest.”

“You’re a twat,” Draco grumbles against his pulse point, playfully catching the skin between his teeth.

“Really?” Potter jumps a little at the nibbling, the bottom of his spine twitching a little under Draco’s palm.

“Yes,” Draco says, brushing his tongue over the raised skin to soothe it, “if you make me say it I’m going to sulk.”

“God forbid,” Potter grins, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, “it’s okay, you nerd; you don’t have to say it. I know you think I’m amazing.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Potter laughs a little, low and soft against his hairline, and Draco hates himself. Because it’s been just over two weeks and he’s already very aware that if he isn’t already embarrassingly, terrifyingly, ridiculously in love with Harry James Potter, he will be soon.

“I know a guy,” Draco says a little while later, after he’s managed to get his heart rate back down and stopped panicking, “when we were renovating the manor after the war I had to work with some muggle contractors. Involved me wining and dining some of them. One of my friends had another friend who has a recording studio in the US. If you – Potter, if you do want to record some stuff, at any time, just, y’know, say so.”

Potter doesn’t say anything back for a few seconds and Draco’s lungs tighten, scared he’s maybe been a bit too unguarded. Instead, Potter flicks Draco’s chin up with his knuckle. He’s smiling, and those beautiful green eyes are so fucking unfairly stunning, he has the momentary urge to just put his hand over them because they are just _too much_ sometimes.

“You never fail to knock the wind out of me, you asshole,” Potter says, and he’s a little breathless, his voice a bit croaky, the grin on his mouth so wide Draco doesn’t know how it hasn’t split his face yet. “I think I’m gonna wait a while though. Play some more gigs, enjoy the smaller performances whilst I still can.”

“Whatever,” Draco attempts to be nonchalant but Potter takes his face in both of his hands and kisses him, and he loses all semblance of indifference.

As per fucking usual.

* * *

 

“Alright,” Hermione says, pushing her hand through her curls to get them out of her face and adjusting herself where she’s crosslegged on the floor, getting more comfortable with the guitar on her lap. “Let me hear that again.”

She focuses on the pick in her hand as she strums the first few notes they’ve been working on again, waiting for Harry to chime in.

“A week ago, you said to me – do you – do you believe, do you believe,” he tries out different notes on the same line, a mini frown creasing his brow, bottom lip catching between his teeth as he bends over his notebook, a curl falling from the loose bun his hair is tied into. He brings a finger up to push his glasses further up his nose where they’ve slipped, and tucks the curl back behind his ear. Hermione smiles softly, enjoying the way he comes alive like this, in a softer quieter way than he does when he’s playing quidditch or performing.

“You’ll never be too far,” she hums, the words slipping off her tongue. His eyes snap up to meet hers and his lips twitch. He points his chewed-up biro at her and grins.

“Yes, you, I’m keeping you.”

“Harry, we’ve been best friends since we were eleven.”

“Yeah, well, beyond doubt this time, okay? That’s great. Hmm… okay, so play that again.”

Her fingers move instinctually over the cords.

“You’ll – you’ll never be too far,” he switches up her tone, and adds a bit of breath to it, making it smoother and deeper. She feels her stomach hitch in excitement, and nods, continuing to play.

“If you’re gone… no, if – if you’re _lost_ just look for me,” he scribbles out the line and Hermione gestures to one of the supervisors to hand them two bottles of water. This is… it’s so nice. She hasn’t played the guitar like this in a while; normally it’s just an outlet for her, when she can’t seem to get things out in any other way. And right now, she can’t think of anything else she’d rather be doing before she goes back into a warzone.

“You’ll find me.”

“In the zone… the _region_ ,” he follows her, “of the summer stars. Yes, I love you Hermione. Okay, this is good. How much longer do we have?”

“Like… three hours?”

“Awesome,” he says I think we can write this and record it by the end of tomorrow’s session.”

“Shit,” she remarks, “really?”

She knows she has an ambitious streak, and has gotten far more done in smaller amounts of time over her years, she knows it’s very much a possibility. They could probably even get two songs done if they pushed for it and she nagged at him some more, but this is something she wants to enjoy, wants to feel natural. And its new too, which she always adores.

“Yep. Thanks, mate,” Harry grins up at Nigel, one of the studio managers as he hands them two bottles each, knowing their voices might get a bit harsh.

“Is – do you mind if I do some vocals on this too?” she asks, “I know I’m just-”

“Oh my god, Hermione, of course you can,” Harry laughs at her softly, shaking his head, “this is going to be great.”

She thinks about how in a few months; their friends will hear this track. An actual recorded track, with their lyrics and their voices and her guitar. And she forces herself to channel the buzz into determination, uses it to focus in the same way she does when she’s sewing intestines back into a soldier’s stomach.

“Right,” she says, “let’s do this then.”


End file.
